Mend a Faux Pas with One Last Chance
by Solis Knight
Summary: The world has gone mad with hidden plots, schemes, and agendas behind every turn. Through heavy opposition, can our hero redeem himself, or will he be doomed to failure yet again, and watch as his life slips through his fingers?
1. Prologue

Mend a Faux Pas with One Last Chance

Prologue

**For all of you who haven't gotten the news: This is the former IsaacGaretMia, now named Solis Knight. I apologize to those of you who had not heard of the name change and have been looking for me, but look no farther.**

**Here it is, the moment you've all been waiting for. Hell, the moment I'VE been waiting for… for FOUR months. Four months of hard work, but it's finally finished. Fourteen chapters, 38 thousand words, according to the chapter-less document, and it's finally finished. This was originally meant to be a 20 thousand word long one-shot, but I overshot that mark way too easily. By the time I had finished, it was over 36 thousand words long, unedited.**

**So I just ask that you sit back, enjoy the ride, and immerse yourselves into the world that you all know… the planet…**

**Earth.**

Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog is owned by the Sonic team and Sega. However, due to a loophole in the system, every single character action within this story belongs to me. So I pretty much own this story. Fancy that.

Rouge once again glared at her superior, the leader of the GUN forces. The General. He was being a complete asshole… _Again_. Rolling her eyes, she wondered how she had ended up in this drab, dismal room again, for the eightieth time this week. She noticed, yet again, the whiteboard to the left side of the room, detailing battle plans, photographs of city layouts, and army positions. Several photographs contained Shadow in them, as if the General had been tailing him… which he had been. Toward the back of the room, one way mirrors allowed its occupants to see outside to the city beyond, while none of the outside world could see back. To the right of her lay a room's width of filing cabinets, some of whose drawers were open and filled with manila folders. Most contained labels on the top, like "PAYMENT RECEIPTS" and "Shipment Invoices", as if anyone gave a damn anymore about what was in them. It wasn't like someone was going through them, looking for obscure bits of information nightly over a few cans of Red Bull. Rouge was standing in front of a comfortable, if small, chair that had been conveniently moved from the other side of the room for her. The General was sitting behind his desk, upon which several papers, a computer, and memory storage devices were scattered like grass seed. Rouge declined to sit, showing her equality by speaking to the General on equal terms, instead of enabling him to belittle her as she sat in a lower position. In this way, she told him that she wasn't going to stand for any bullshit.

Speak of the devil, that's what she was receiving from him right now. Their current focus of discussion was a mission sent out two months ago, in which one of their operatives was supposed to pick up a crucial shipment of weapons and ammunition and deliver it to the armory in Westopolis. Their operative, upon receiving the package, was not sighted again after setting out. A day later, in Westopolis, the crate arrived… without its carrier. The armory had no clues as to the whereabouts of the agent, and that was two months ago. GUN still hadn't heard from him, and now Rouge had to advocate the same case over and over again, just so the General could wave it off as if it were nothing. And that was what was happening now.

"What of it, Rouge? He's gone AWOL. There's nothing to it." The General, once again, reiterated himself. Rouge was to the point of breaking something by now. Did the General care so little about his comrades? Their agent was supposed to be one of their own. Rouge personally knew him, and she knew that he wouldn't go AWOL. Not like this.

"I'm telling you again, General. He's still out there. Probably captured. And you haven't done anything… _For two months_. He could be dead right now, and we wouldn't even know it. Is that how you treat your men?" Rouge herself repeated. She was thoroughly pissed now. Men had such thick skulls… You could say it over and over, and they just wouldn't get it. They would cling to their misguided beliefs even when the truth is so plainly in sight, and refuse to believe it if it were shoved ten feet up their own asses.

"And _I_ say that it's no use to look for him! You said it yourself, he's probably dead. Just forget about him and move on, for Chaos' sake!" The General snapped at her. Any other subordinate would cower in fear at this point, afraid of losing their job. But Rouge knew better. They needed her skills, and no sane leader would _dare_ fire her… If they wanted to keep their money. The General was spared a scathing remark by a soldier entering from the information/radar lab. He was holding what looked to be a paper filled with lines of code. Rouge suddenly perked up with interest, scanning the page out of the corner of her eye for anything interesting. Usually it was just another photograph or battle plan. But if they took the time to copy out one of their codes, you knew something was up.

"Sir, we've got a problem, sir!" The soldier saluted, shouting out the traditional mantra. Nodding, the General took the paper from the lackey and skimmed through it. His mouth curled into a frown.

"Are you sure about this? We haven't seen activity from him in two months." The General asked, prompting Rouge's incredulous stare. Two months… the timelines overlapped. Could it be him? But no, her hopes were to be shot down once again as the soldier nodded and the General began to explain his orders.

"Well, Rouge… Looks like our little "chat" is going to have to be cut short. Eggman's got some sort of plan going down. Our radar has picked up an unusual signal from within his base of operations. I order you to take whatever operatives you need to investigate the source, and destroy it if possible." The General paused, before adding, "And do make sure to stay out of danger. Send in Sonic if you need to. Eggman's up to something…" The General muttered, stroking his chin thoughtfully. Of course, that was a given with the fat scientist. Always plotting… Always working… Didn't the good doctor ever take a freaking break?!

"Yes, sir…" Rouge excused herself from the pompous ass… err, the General. Walking down the hallway, she flicked open the lid on her wrist communicator, and punched in a few commands. Tails may have been a genius, but he sucked at making manuals for all the shit he made. Rouge barely knew how to contact the others with this thing, much less all of the unnecessary but useful functions he packed into the watch.

"Sonic. Get Tails and get over to Eggman's base. I got a job for ya." Rouge spoke into the communicator. Inside the machine, several computers were already processing the information from the microphone input and vision sensor. Immediately, digital binary bits flooded the transmitter as visual and audio data was compiled and compressed. The bits were then sent straight to an orbital receiver dish, where the signals took a proverbial break, technically being amplified, before being re sent out to the other communicator or communicators.

In a few seconds, Rouge's watch lit up, and a virtual display of Sonic popped up in 3-D above it. It looked completely realistic, besides the fact that he looked like you would expect a virtual display to look. The information flooding her communicator was transmitted to the computers, which was then converted back into the image and audio outputs. Color was minimal, and everything looked like it was shaded in different hues of blue. Granted, Sonic was a blue hedgehog, but even Rouge could see that it wasn't all supposed to be that way. His voice crackled out of the speakers, responding to her call.

"Alright. Meet ya there, batgirl. Don't be late." Rouge chuckled at this, considering that she would probably arrive about half an hour after Sonic would. The fastest hedgehog alive was probably faster than GUN's own sonic jets, which could travel faster than the speed of sound. Sonic's name was rightly given. Sighing, she took the speed route to the roof of the unnecessarily large headquarters. Spreading her wings wide, she took off at a run, relishing the wind flowing past her body. Her surroundings became a set of blurred lines and fuzzy images as she took off, soaring into the sky before flying toward the rendezvous point. The mission had begun.


	2. Chapter 1

Sonic sat on one of Tails' incredibly comfortable lounge chairs in his living room, tearing through chilidogs like Robotnik's machines. Being best friends with a genius did have its perks; namely, enough funds to purchase an unlimited supply of chilidogs. When they said "unlimited", they _meant_ unlimited. On a holder next to the chair he had a soda, which he was sipping from time to time in between monstrous bites. The phrase "chilidogs were his favorite food" was an understatement. They weren't his _favorite_… They were his _life_.

Tails, meanwhile, was currently hard at work on a new invention. The kitsune was always working, even when he wasn't! If he wasn't tinkering with some machinery, he was drawing detailed blueprints in 3-D in that big brain of his. Even when he was sleeping he had a thought recorder next to his bed to record his dreams. At that rate, the Tornado series of airplanes were built faster than an assembly line could even dream of assembling them. A Chaos Emerald glinted on the floor next to Tails, as he used it to power his inventions. Seemingly random charges pulsed from the intricate gemstone at irregular intervals, almost like a heartbeat. By attuning small negative and positive ion transformers near the outside of the gem, he could make an electrical current rush through the system. Batteries charged within minutes. Seemingly endless energy: an inventor's dream.

So here he was, building the latest of a new line of hover boards. Sonic could be heard munching on chilidogs in the background. In his head, music was playing gently, a soothing balm to his fast paced inventing mind. All of a sudden, Sonic's wrist communicator began to buzz, almost like an alarm on a digital wristwatch. Tails dashed over to him, spinning his namesakes to give him an extra burst. By the time Sonic had set down the platter of dogs and pressed the "Receive" button, Tails was right there next to him.

"Sonic. Get Tails and get over to Eggman's base. I got a job for ya." Rouge's silken tones purred through the digital sound system he had implanted into the device. A 3-D cyber rendition of Rouge's frame appeared in the space above the watch-like mechanism. She had her arms crossed, as if she were giving an order that she expected them to follow. Sonic, having been expertly trained on using the communicator, immediately locked onto the coordinates of the transmission. Rouge was currently in GUN headquarters, which meant that the orders came from higher up. With Eggman… that didn't bode well.

"Alright. Meet ya there, batgirl. Don't be late." Sonic replied, his voice switching on the microphone within the system. Rouge chuckled and hung up the line. The nerve! She didn't even give them specific to-the-minute coordinates! Why did he build all of these electronics if no one would ever use them?! Next to him, Sonic shrugged it off, powering down the digital display. Naturally, he was already ready to go. Becoming a blue streak of light within seconds, he nimbly returned the platter of dogs to the fridge, saving them for later. His soda was also returned in swift order. Before Tails could even register that he had moved at all, Sonic had taken out the tiny vacuum and cleaned up after himself. Originally, Sonic had been a slob, but Tails had been very explicit that Sonic had to be cleaner if he wanted access to chilidogs. And just like that, his living room became ten times cleaner. Snapping out of it, he noticed that Sonic was leaning against the wall near the doorway, waiting for Tails to grab his gear.

-

Nodding, Tails walked over and grabbed his prototype hover board. The Cyclone II: a board containing Chaos powered turbo thrusters, heat seeking RPGs, and various other types of equipment. As a bonus, Tails had made the electronics so versatile on the communicators that he could control the thing simply by manipulating the rectangular touch pad on the display. Tails kicked the board into the air, watching it suspend itself mid-fall, waiting for its rider. Spinning his namesakes, he rose, landing onto the board while planting his feet firmly as if it were any old skateboard off the street. At first, he was a bit wobbly, but his namesakes helped to prevent him from toppling over. Soon he was zooming past Sonic out in the Mystic Ruins, on the way to Eggman's base. Sonic, the cobalt blur, was right behind him. Together, they raced through the thick jungle out into the wilderness beyond.

Eggman's fortress was surprisingly inconspicuous… Not. A big egg-shaped dome surrounded by three sets of walls topped with barbed wire, badniks and egg-bots patrolling the perimeter of each zone, and spotlights shining up the place completely. Eggman's face was imprinted upon the egg-dome, as if to say "If you weren't sure whether it was me or not, this should help you out a bit." Sonic and Tails soon reached the outer perimeter of the base, sheltered in the tree line, and waited for Rouge to arrive. It was obvious considering their super-sonic speeds that they would beat her, so they occupied themselves with scanning the defense systems.

Eggman had taken no chances, it seemed. Around the platform that the egg-dome sat on, several circular indents were quite plainly obvious to them. They had seen these before, hedgehog seeking rocket turrets that would rise out of the metalwork to harass Sonic as he ran. Sonic shouldn't have any problem avoiding them though, and Tails could easily shoot out flares if one decided to go after him. Flares were tiny rockets that fanned out to envelop and destroy incoming rockets. Tails dubbed them "flares" because of their distinctive red tail jets.

Atop the towers, spaced evenly apart across the walls, lay gun turrets, and not those ordinary GUN issue ones either: these looked to be much more powerful. Tails estimated that they could shoot anti-personnel rounds specifically designed for fleshy targets faster than Sonic could run. But… Sonic could run faster than they could aim. Tails, providing that he could dodge the incoming hailstorm of bullets, could probably take them out with a well placed RPG as well. The golden kitsune would be busy, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

A different complication arose as Tails spotted the tiny bunkers on the ground, sunk into the zones between the outer walls. Tails immediately recognized them as flame turrets. These bad boys could fire napalm and flame quite quickly in all directions. If Sonic could avoid the flame, he might be able to destroy most of them… provided of course that he didn't get charred to a crisp in the process.

What Eggman ensemble wouldn't be complete with fricken laser beams? Honestly, what would the world have come to if you couldn't have fricken LASER beams on top of your structures? Eggman had taken this philosophy to heart, it seemed, and had nearly _coated_ the outside of the egg-dome with laser turrets. And not just any laser turrets. These ones used the new plasma models currently being tested in GUN laboratories. A superheated beam of highly concentrated infrared rays shot out from these death dealers, slicing clean through anything that happened to be in their path. The infrared was so hot, the energy sped up fast enough to be shown in the visible light range, specifically in the red color…

Tails nearly did a double take as GUN choppers began to encircle the compound. No alarms? No bots attacking there? The GUN just up and walked right in without a hitch? No. It couldn't be that simple. And indeed it wasn't. Eggman had apparently gotten about four models of GUN helicopters and used them for his own purposes. Luckily, blueprints were readily available through Tails' hacking tools within his communicator. Within seconds, weak spots were already visible to his locking mechanisms within his board. Easy targets.

Finally, Rouge arrived, landing nearly silently on the dirt ground next to them. She was panting slightly from the long flight, but it didn't seem to matter to her. Her communicator hadn't turned off yet, for some odd reason that made no sense to Tails, and she was opening her mouth to begin to explain the situation. The kitsune turned to face her, terminating his survey of the defensive system.

"Alright, you two. The situation is pretty straightforward. We received an unusual radar signal from within the base. Your job is to analyze, and if possible, destroy any threat it may pose. Any questions?" Rouge spat it all out quickly, almost in a hurry to finish the job and get the hell out of there. As usual, Tails took the opportunity to ask the questions. In the absence of anyone else who would ask them, he got stuck with the pleasure.

"Question one: Why is your communicator still on? Don't you know how to turn it off? Question two: What are _you_ going to be doing? Question 3: What exactly did this damn signal have in it that makes you guys so afraid?" Tails listed them off on his fingers. In any other circumstance, Tails would be receiving the blunt and heavy end of a steel toed boot to his face, followed up by a quick punt to his nuts. But his skills were needed right now, and he currently had a treaty with every country on Mobius, GUN, all of his friends, and the ARK, not to hurt him in any way shape or form until Eggman was taken down; so he was _allowed_ to be a complete ass.

"I'll ignore that for now. But mind that you don't get on my bad side _too_ much… There are other ways to inflict pain than boots." Rouge warned, and Tails got a sense of dread, as if this indeed was _not_ an idle threat. With Tails suitably terrorized, Rouge now felt it necessary to answer his questions.

"One: Do you expect me to know how to use your damn communicator if you don't provide a manual at least?! Two: I'm going to be back here, keeping intelligence fed to you and watching your backs. Three: Possible residual Chaos energy, and other unknown radiant electromagnetic waves in the cosmic spectrum." Rouge, too, listed them off on her fingers. Tails face palmed himself as he heard the first one. Why did he have to be stuck with people who don't have any experience with technology? One of these days, he was going to make a toaster with a built in calculator, calendar, tranquilizer dart shooter, alarm clock, and GPS navigation system, place them all inside the unit, and sell it commercially without telling ANYONE that there was so much shit inside of it. And the toast it made was probably good for something too…

Tails nodded at the second one, as it made sense for her to stay behind. If there was something that he had missed, it would be quite useful to know if there was a Tails-seeking missile coming at him from behind. Plus, GUN probably didn't want to lose their best agent to a mere scouting mission. At the third one, Tails gulped audibly. The scientists back at GUN laboratories had only just begun to _find_ these rays, much less _understand_ them; although Tails already knew a lot about them. Stars emit energy at least partially in all wavelengths. The wavelength of cosmic rays was so short, the ARK had to be triple reinforced with the strongest stuff Mobius had to offer. And even _still_ the plates had to be changed every month or so. Eventually they came up with a magnetic system to repel the waves, much like Mobius' atmosphere did. However, it was only shortly thereafter that the ARK incident occurred, and maintenance no longer paid attention to the colony.

Tails nodded, hopping onto his board again. Tapping out a set of code into his communicator, a digital keyboard appeared composed of neon blue shimmering cord. It was completely insubstantial, but the communicator could read the keystrokes through the air. The golden kitsune had long since mastered the art of using both the top and bottom of the keyboard to type, flipping the watch-like device over so it was face up on the bottom of his wrist. This way, he could easily maneuver and control the board. Next to him, Sonic finished his little nap, finally getting up with a yawn and stretching. If he wasn't running, he was napping, and he was sometimes napping while he was running too. If he couldn't run, he would either nap or eat chilidogs; whichever opportunity presented itself first.

"'Kay, Sonic. Head for the springs, bounce over the walls, home in on those flame turrets. I'm covering you, so watch out for the missiles, bullets, and lasers." Tails listed off, typing in short commands on his cybernetic keyboard. At once, the hover board flared into life, and the duo took off toward the base.

"Watch out for the helicopters. Aim for their tails." Rouge's voice cut in through his communicator, prompting Tails to roll his eyes. As if he hadn't already known that… but he had decided not to be a little asshole anymore. Rouge's payback was _not_ something he wanted to experience. Rule number one of society: Never fuck with a female bat that has steel toed boots on and stealth to match a ninja. Below, Sonic turned off to the right at an angle, heading towards a group of robots in an adjacent zone. Tails didn't notice as he was busy homing in on one of the helicopters.

And then the Chaos began. Tails charged right at one of the copters, letting loose a steady stream of Vulcan cannon shots from the front of the board. A few improvised commands allowed him to flip to the side to avoid the flaming debris created by the destroyed copter. Spinning around, he sped down toward one of the machine turrets, currently aimed at Sonic.

Speaking of which, Sonic had quickly dashed through the squad of badniks while Tails was preoccupied above. Leaping into the air, he used consecutive Homing attacks to obliterate one after another. Their mangled parts littered the ground as Sonic finished, standing alone amongst the wreckage. Other squads converged upon his position, but by the time they got close enough to fire he was long gone, dashing around from platform to platform. Eggman had apparently forgotten to take out the springs, so Sonic was allowed to jump easily over the wall and into the next zone.

Tails, in the interim, was gunning straight for the missile turret who had apparently just noticed him. Before even a single shot was fired, Tails had zoomed straight past the guy, knocking him off the tower with an outstretched arm. That's right: Tails just side-clothesline-d a guy in mid-flight. Who's the badass now? The kitsune made a sharp turn, his body almost parallel to the ground as he stopped his death charge. The laser turrets began to open fire, and the machine gun turrets began to see the bigger threat. Of course, that was the point: If everyone thought Tails was more dangerous, Sonic could easily take care of the flamethrowers. Now… how to get out alive…?

"Do a barrel roll! Press A to shoot!" Rouge added in through the communicator, not without a bit of sarcastic humor. Tails had no clue what she was talking about, probably some videogame involving a fox flying around space with big laser cannons or something. That wasn't the point. The point was that Tails was actually using the advice… sort of. Flipping to the left and right, he was able to avoid the more lethal lasers. Hedgehog seeking cannons began to rise out of the platforms around the base, forcing the kitsune to type in a long command string to his board. Within seconds, a hundred tiny sticks broke off from the underside, and shot out towards the cannons. Without even looking to see the results, Tails switched his target over to a helicopter that had begun to make its presence known. The craft had already begun to fire, and Tails had been too slow to react. A tiny chunk of metal dropped off from the board as it was hit by at least a dozen tiny pellets fired from the pathetic machine guns mounted to the helicopter. Baring his teeth, he unleashed hell upon the helicopter, commanding a laser cannon to telescope out of the front of the board (defying the laws of physics YET AGAIN…) and aim directly at the craft. A beam the size of a telephone pole tore through the front of the copter and burst out the back like the hull was made of no more than tissue paper. Tails grinned psychopathically as his deadly machine went into action.

Sonic below was having a bit of trouble negotiating with the flamethrowers. They had long since figured out that they weren't going to get anywhere by _aiming_ at him, so they just went in random directions now, hoping to get him. Sonic was forced to time his attacks perfectly in order to destroy one in time, before a scorching blast came rocketing toward him. And of course, the first couple times he nearly got singed, due to his horrible timing. By now, his arm fur was completely burned off, one of his legs was smoking, and he was pretty sure his backside wasn't faring too well either. But more than half of the turrets had already gone down due to his tenacious assault, and more were on the way as Sonic leapt up from the ruins of yet another broken down hunk of junk and assaulted the next flamethrower. The man operating it _tried_ to turn it Sonic's way fast enough, but he met the fate of all of the other flame jockeys that had tried to hit Sonic the Hedgehog: the man was crushed beneath the weight of his own weapon. Sonic dropped out of his position spinning in the air, careful to land on metal and not get de-balled on a sharp flange of shrapnel sticking out somewhere. Looking up, he could see the fantastic light show display coming from Tails' new laser cannon. Reminding himself never to piss off his little bro, he leapt into the air again, and was off to break some more of Eggman's crap.

Up in the air, Tails was now dodging a combined assault of lasers, missiles, cannon fire, bullets, and helicopters, trying to shoot the latter down without getting blown to bits. Down below, Sonic was having the time of his life destroying the flame turrets, while Tails was stuck between fiery hammers and tiny, painful anvils. But that didn't stop Tails from being a stupendous badass. Nope. Tails kicked off from his board, allowing himself to fall headfirst toward the ground at more than a mile a minute while his board struggled to catch up. A few more commands into his communicator caused the board to spin as it fell through the air, making a beeline to Tails as he fell. Miniature Vulcan blasts shot out of his machine, completely destroying a good amount of missiles and bullets in the process. Spinning his namesakes, he controlled the fall so he could drop right back down onto the board as if he had just jumped off a swing set in mid-swing. Not painful at all. By now, he had fallen below the helicopters, which were both right in front of him, facing him, and trying to aim their weapons at him. Another quick command into his communicator ensured that the helicopters' last moments were to be a fiery hell. In keeping with his stupendous badass-ness, he didn't even watch as they exploded in a fantastic fireworks display, already locking on to a couple more gun turrets who were trying to turn him into swiss cheese.

Down below, Sonic had just finished making a complete mess of the last flame turret, standing on the fringe of an apocalypse of machinery. The ground-to-hedgehog missiles were just beginning to fire up it seemed, and Eggman was beginning to focus _more_ on him with his lasers now. Perfect. His form became a blur as he swiftly sidestepped a powerful laser attack from one of the turrets above. Missiles poured over the walls as they took off from the inner cloister. Grinning from ear to ear Sonic leapt, light as a feather, from one missile to the next as they made a sort of bridge for him to walk on. It did not take long for him to reach the inner ring at this pace. The missiles were all reversing on themselves now, trying to follow him as he zoomed past. Most collided with each other, enveloping each other in huge explosions. Honestly, was Egg-head _trying_ to make this easy for him? Tails didn't even have to _bother_ helping him destroy these. Almost contemptuously, Sonic dashed from one launcher to the next, jumping up only to come slamming down upon the assembly and dash away as it exploded in a shower of sparks. Not even the scrap metal he left behind was going to be good for anything in the state he left it in. Within minutes, the only menace left to face was the badniks, machine turrets, and laser beams. Sonic was about to leave the task to Tails when his voice came through on his communicator.

"You're inside, right? I'm not having too much fun up here, Sonic! I just located a self destruct mechanism for his security. It's located next to the front door. Eggman got stupid again, so just use it!" Machine gun fire nearly made the message unintelligible, but he was able to understand the gist of it. Eggman was stupid enough to create a self destruct button and place it on the outside… _again_… Sure enough, as he raced around the dome, right next to the front door there was a capsule with a button on top just _begging_ him to jump on it. And so he did. And so the entire security system shut down, the robots exploded, the turrets cooled down, and the laser cannons returned to their homes on the interior of the dome. Tails dropped out of the air like an eagle swooping down to attack its prey. At the last minute he pulled back up, stopping with less than five feet to go before he slammed into the ground. Not bad for his first time on the board. He looked bad, his board having been pierced in more than one spot by bullets. No matter how hard the fox tried to conceal it, he was breathing heavily too. But he waved off Sonic's concerned look before it even formed.

"Let's just get in there, Sonic. _Bios: negotiate us an entrance._" Tails said the last command to his communicator. BIOS stood for Basic Input-Output System, conspicuously named after the latin root meaning life. The BIOS was what made computers… well, computers. Without it, it would just be a dull bucket of circuits. Tails had just ended up calling it what it was, and letting _it_ do the rest. The laser cannon reappeared on the front of his board, and at Tails' command, blasted a hedgehog-sized hole right through the titanium plated door.

"Shall we?" Tails gestured in towards the door, and Sonic nodded back.

"We shall." And together they entered the abyss that was Eggman's fortress.


	3. Chapter 2

It was dark for the first moment of two, with Eggman not expecting company… nor wanting any. The darkness was foreboding and eerie, but it didn't last. To the left and right of them, paneled strips of lights flashed on the floor. The ceiling was illuminated by similar panels, except these were wider and directly overhead of the duo.

They continued walking. The walls were metallic and dull, circuit wires running along the sides. Eggman's ugly face was imprinted every two panels or so, leering at them as if he had just taken over the world. Tails could have sworn the eyes were following them, like in the old Scooby Doo cartoons, but that would be ridiculous. After all, Eggman was an idiot! Step after step, the hole in the door behind them grew smaller and smaller as they moved farther and farther away until they passed through an arch and lost sight of it completely.

They entered an anteroom, a sort of lounge for the base. Tails had no clue why Eggman would bother including furniture, but there were two sofas, arranged in a V-like formation facing a widescreen TV. On either side, there were stands that held remotes to the TV, a miniature freezer for beer (how do you think Eggman got so fat?), several retro popcorn poppers, and soda fountains. A state-of-the-art stereo system was hooked up all around the room, putting rock concerts to shame. The bass was right below the TV, and was large enough to be mistaken for a mini-car. Other speakers slightly smaller than the bass were hooked up in each of the four corners of the room, at eye level. A disco ball hung from the ceiling, an homage to an age long past. They passed through the room reluctantly, knowing that looting this place would probably have satisfied them for a good year or two alone.

Another long hallway greeted them, this one spiraling around in the inner circle of the dome. If the dome was an onion, Tails and Sonic would be walking along one of the inner layers. Their footsteps echoed in the nearly silent hallways. Tails' hover board floated nearly silently alongside of them, scanning every couple of seconds for signs of infrared energy. Other than the lights and the wires and themselves, there wasn't much. An odd signal was emanating from further into the dome, to their left. It wasn't infrared, it was something else. This confirmed GUN's suspicions: Eggman was up to something.

"Hey, Tails…" Sonic began, turning his head to look at the kitsune while still keeping up the pace. Tails kept walking as well, but nodded to show that he was listening. Sonic continued.

"Don't you think this is a little weird? I mean, come _on_… We both know Eggman's stupid, but to actually put a self-destruct button on the outside of the base? And think about it. We haven't hit one security patrol _yet_." Sonic pointed out, and Tails rolled his eyes. This was all old news to him, Sonic was just repeating arguments that Tails had already thought of, brought counterexamples up for, and examined thoroughly from each side.

"Duh, Sonic." Tails stated bluntly. Sonic raised an eyebrow quizzically. "If it's obvious to you, with your intellect, of course it was obvious to me! So tell me, what do _you_ plan on doing about it?" Tails pushed back, bringing up the chief argument against action. Sonic scratched his head, thinking. They kept walking and Tails waited patiently. Finally, he seemed to come up with something halfway decent.

"Well, we can't go back. I mean, what are we gunna tell Rouge? 'Hey, we think something's up, so we're not going in there.'? No way! Then again, we can't just go in there blindly… Any ideas?" Sonic summed it up quite nicely. There were, frankly, no options but to keep moving. Tails shook his head no, and they continued along their spiral path. Tails ran a fortieth check on the board's subsystems. Thruster capacity was at 80% from the hit it had sustained earlier. The frame was slightly cracked, but still mostly intact. Weapons were at 100%, they hadn't been harmed one bit. The sensors were a little bit damaged, and a few of them had lost power from the breakdown of the piece of the frame. They were showing a readout of 61% on his communicator. It was bad, but it had to last 'till he got back to his lab.

Suddenly, the lights flashed red below and above them. Pseudo-darkness filled the room as their eyes adjusted to the darker colors. An electric-sounding woman's voice played on the loudspeaker, reminiscent of techno-movies where an intruder had been detected. And indeed, that was exactly what she was saying. So at least Eggman had prepared a welcoming party, right? Tails and Sonic slid back to back against each other, rotating around to prevent ambushes. Out of the semi-darkness came a small army of robots. They were nearly silent, floating on anti-magnetic thrusters. Their twin-barreled Vulcan cannons gleamed dully in the red glare. Their bodies were protected by two-inch thick metal, most likely reinforced. The robots were in no way, shape, or form, small. They were pretty big, only three and maybe half of a fourth could fit in a phalanx formation along the hallways.

Tails pressed a button on the keyboard, which was still up and running. It then turned off. Flipping the watch head back to the top of his wrist, he brought it to his mouth. Microphones within the device began to record, and the supercomputers prepared to interpret his commands.

"_Bios: program Turret Delta execute. Vulcan cannons engage. Program Small Packages execute._" Three separate commands ran through the device, and immediately afterword the board kicked into life. It had been floating beside them, flashing off a dull warning of the plainly visible robots before the commands. Now, it was thrusting off, anchoring itself in place directly above their heads. The Vulcan cannons reappeared on the front of the board, which would turn on its axis and begin to shoot down the robots on Tails' command. The sensors would ensure that neither Sonic nor the golden kitsune would be targeted by the cannon fire. Out of small compartments on the underside of the board, a multitude of small bombs dropped. Big gifts come in small packages, they say… These things could take out a tank if placed properly. As it was, Tails would have to be careful not to put himself in the blast radius. Each grenade was the size of a pea at first, before its outer shell expanded to the size of grapes. Somehow, Tails had programmed these babies to detonate only when he wanted them to. Marvelous work.

"Hey, Tails… You got a plan?" Sonic called behind him, pulling his socks up with his right arm while still remaining mostly upright. A tough trick to learn, but a useful one at that. The robots were coming closer by now, from both sides. Their cannons were warming up; bright orange spots glowed within the cannon barrels. Tails brought the communicator back up to his mouth, calling over his shoulder at the same time.

"Hell yes, Sonic. _Bios: Engage Targets!_" Above them, all hell broke loose. The turret-ized board spun around, loosing a hail of cannon fire into the first wave of enemies. Tails scooped up a handful of the bombs and let fly with them. As he tossed them over the heads of the robots, one after the other exploded in the most opportune places. The shockwaves from each individual blast penetrated the thick outer shells of the robots, rattling Tails' teeth in his own mouth. But it didn't matter much, as each robot fell one by one.

Sonic had already begun to give 'em hell behind the kitsune. Leaping into the air, he used a homing attack on the second wave of robots as the first wave fell back. The cannon fire magically missed Sonic's body by mere fractions of an inch, as the turret continued to dish out cans of whoop-ass. Landing on all fours onto the ground, he pushed off with his hands into a backflip. His feet arced up in an elliptical pattern, slamming his heels down onto the top of another robot. A crater appeared on the metallic ground, where the smoldering ruins of the destroyed mech remained. Landing back onto two feet, he now was in the middle of a throng of bots. There wasn't much he could do without an emerald, but that wasn't going to stop him now was it?

"_Sonic, WIND!_" Spinning around, his arms remaining stationary as his body formed a shape not unlike propeller blades, Sonic conjured a maelstrom of supersonic energy. The robots closest to him were almost immediately crushed, bolts of pure wind slamming into them with godly force. These bots rammed into the robots behind them, setting off small chain reactions. A good four or five waves of mechs fell to the onslaught that was Sonic Wind.

Tails, meanwhile, was in the process of ramming a grape down the throats of any robot that came within ten feet of him, which turned out to be a lot of robots… His tails whirled around, raising him far above the floor, and slightly above the heads of the bots. Tails' voice rang out in the confined space, singing a twisted version of a childlike tune: "One blown-up, two blown-up, three blown-up robots, four blown-up, five blown-up, six blown-up robots, seven blown-up, eight blown-up, nine blown-up robots, and there's still so many to go!" His almost maniacal laughter added to the cacophony of battle.

Even with Sonic's speed, Tails had demolished the robots on his side faster than Sonic could. In fact, Tails had time to invent the cure to AIDS while Sonic finished playing with his friends. Finally, after each and every piece of junk robot was reduced to smoking rubble, they were able to continue. Welcoming committees were always fun to deal with.

The rest of their journey was a walk in the park, pretty much. The lights stayed red, reminding them that they had been spotted. The destroyed scrap heaps were still back there, though, reminding Eggman that his mechs sucked and that he should probably ask Bill Gates for a few of his armed security bots. A man who made _that_ much money on a glitchy OS like Windows just _had_ to be a genius. And of course, what do genii do? Build robots, duh.

So it was that the duo arrived at the core of the facility. Tails had long since disengaged his turret program and returned the grapes to their containers. They had magically returned to their pea-like sizes as well. As the five-inch-thick blast doors opened, they were greeted with a circular room, the walls completely smooth. It reminded them heavily of déjà vu, but neither could place where they had seen it before. Obviously, this room contained the machine, but where was it? A slightly raised platform stood in the center of the room, standing out like a sore thumb. Obviously, they knew all too well to stand clear of it. Whatever it was there for, it was _NOT_ a good place to have a picnic. Walking inside, they stayed on their guard, eyes searching for other robots or a giant laser or something.

Tails whirled around, hearing a tiny scraping noise behind them. Of course, as luck would have it, the blast doors had been almost silently closing the second they entered the room. The blast door would not yield an escape route either… The Vulcan cannon didn't even make a dent as Tails ordered fire from the board. Eggman's cackling laughter resonated across the room, signaling their demise. When Eggman laughed _that_ maniacally, you _knew_ some bad shit was goin' down…

In an instant, Tails recognized the room, and the machine. Pushing Sonic towards the center, he re-initiated the three programs he had begun earlier. The Vulcan cannon reappeared. Bombs dropped. The board fixed itself above their heads atop the platform. Sonic whirled around, looking at Tails as if the kitsune had lost his mind. Tails silenced him with a hand.

"Sonic, this is not here to kill us. Recognize this blasted thing? This is the fucking Solaris Prototype, Mark II! If we can't get out of here, he's going to send us somewhere we _don't_ want to go. Now help me throw these damn bombs! HIT ANYTHING THAT LOOKS WEAK!" Tails frantically shouted, ignoring Eggman's jeers from the loudspeaker. They grew louder and louder as the bombs they threw failed to do anything.

"It's no use, dunces! These walls are ten inches thick in some places! You two are going to say hello to a few good friends of mine… _The dinosaurs_! Gah ha ha ha ha!" Eggman's laughs rang out to them. They were still ignoring it, but Tails was able to catch the word _dinosaur_… He threw the bombs harder, struggling to find a weak point. Within minutes, the bombs ran out. They hadn't even made a dent.

The machine hummed, and they felt a pang of dread. It was all over. Eggman was going to send them to the past, possibly back to the point where there would be no way to get the emeralds and return. They were goners. Suddenly, a bomb fell beside him, a straggler that had stayed back, held fast by the door. Looking up, Tails saw the head of the machine staring back at him: a mechanical spire sticking straight out of the ceiling. In one fluid motion, Tails snatched the grenade off the floor, and chucked it at the spire. Tails could see it now: Eggman watching in horror as the grenade made its fatal arc, Tails grinning wildly as the bomb came closer and closer to its target, the resulting explosion, and their freedom rubbing into Eggman's face!

In a perfect world, that would have happened. Eggman would have lost, and things would be back to normal for a week or two, until the good doctor came up with _another _ill-fated plot to rule the world.

In reality, the bomb _did_ explode… and nothing happened. Eggman's laughter reached a new height in merriment as their supposed salvation failed them. Tails fell to his knees in defeat. It was all over. The machine was almost done charging, and they were out of bombs. Sonic had his fists clenched behind the kitsune, his knuckles underneath his gloves as white as the gloves were themselves, yet he was powerless to do anything. The previous Sonic Wind had drained his strength; there was nothing that he could do. There was nothing _anyone _could do now. It was over.

Lights flashed red overhead. A green flash burst into existence as the machine flared into life. Tails closed his eyes, and prepared for the inevitable. A wormhole through time, sucking them through dimensions like water through a tube… They were finished. It was all up to Rouge now. She had been hearing every minute of the action, and she, too, knew that it was over.

Suddenly, the fox's ears pricked up. Eggman's voice wasn't the only thing he heard now. The glare of the red lights dimmed, as if they were being blocked by something. An ominous voice filled the room, loud enough to be heard over Eggman's boisterous laughter, which almost immediately ceased to exist.

"Missing something, doctor? I took the liberty of taking a souvenir from your little machine here… Don't worry! I gave you something in return!" Shadow grinned wickedly, holding an object in each of his hands. Tails could see a glass capsule resembling a sort of fuse in one hand, an odd collection of tubes and cylinders within the glass. The glass was capped on each end by metal, and a relatively small width of metal pipe ran down the middle of the device. Stemming off of the pipe like spokes of a wheel , wires jutted out to support smaller cylinders running vertically up the device. The small cylinders were no longer than a pill, and they were scattered all over the inside of the fuse-like device. In the other hand, Shadow held the red Chaos Emerald. It gleamed even more fiercely in the heat of the glare overhead, which, now that Tails thought about it, probably didn't signal something good. It was like some sort of code in the mechanics industry: Green means good, red means bad, yellow means that Tails is right in front of you ready to kick your ass. Oh, sorry, yellow usually means watch out. But Tails had been using his own definition for quite some time.

Back to the plotline! Eggman had finally gotten some visual feed to his monitors, which (coincidentally) were running Windows 98 and so they kept crashing every few seconds… Once he finally found a monitor that would show him what was going on, he flipped on the volume to the microphone to full volume.

"**YOU BASTARD! YOU GO BACK AND YOU PUT THINGS RIGHT! GAH! **Another plan ruined! Why do I act like such a lame Bond villain?!?!?! I'm even going to escape imminent doom like one!" Eggman ranted, whilst the red lights pulsed quicker and quicker. Evidently, whatever Shadow had done, it had not been for the benefit of the device. Turning around, Shadow extended an arm to the duo, who had just been standing there slack jawed the entire time like morons.

"What, you two gunna just stand there? I mean, Tails at least deserves to get out of here alive for making that wonderful fake emerald of his… Faker can stay if he wants. No objections here." Shadow kept his hand out, and in a jolt Tails realized that they were supposed to Chaos Control their way out of there. Smacking his forehead, the kitsune realized that Sonic probably could have taken the emerald from the board and done that ages ago. A few button presses later, and the board was now following Tails dutifully as he ran to his salvation.

Time slowed down. Every step seemed to be twice that. Then ten times. One footfall stretched on for a mile as the space-time-continuum was ripped to shreds in an instant. A world of fire and flames materialized around them, molten metal and machinery falling from the sky above them. He could feel the heat of the flames, and the cold of ice at the same time. Wind pushed him back as he continued to race through the Chaos. The earth beneath his feet rocked, skewing his balance horribly. The light grew brighter, he could no longer distinguish the red glare from the fire. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the room collapsed altogether. Shadow was still there, holding his hand out towards Tails as Sonic kept his own gloved hand right above it, waiting for him to hurry up. A futile prospect.


	4. Chapter 3

Outside of the dome, Rouge bowed her head in sadness as the dome exploded in an almost nuclear blast, mushrooming into the air like… Well, actually this one was accurately named, so we'll leave it at that. Nothing could have survived that explosion. Anything within its radius was disintegrated in milliseconds. Eggman had long since flown away on his hover-egg, but Rouge had elected to stay behind for her teammates, should they find it in themselves to escape.

The dust began to clear, and it was worse than Rouge had thought. A crater of meteoric proportions was all that was left of the former base of Eggman. All that was left of any carbon based lifeforms down there was just dust. That was all – dust. The grassland around the base had been burnt to a crisp, flattening the field into blight within milliseconds. It sent a clear message to those who saw the carnage.

Everything burns.

Metal, rock, grass, soil, air, water, time, space, even… even Mobians burned just the same. And it was the same even for those three, the heroes of their age.

Sonic the Hedgehog – the speed demon who accepted no limits. Brave to no end, a true hero.

Miles "Tails" Prower – the fox genius who could build anything, no matter how outrageous. Bravery exceeding that of his tender age: A true hero.

Shadow the Hedgehog – the often misunderstood hedgehog, whom many considered to be a demon spawned by Black Arms… But even so, he himself had been good once. And the night had been darkest just before the dawn for this hedgehog, as he nearly destroyed Earth as retribution for Maria's death. As Earth's new protector, he had become the antihero feared yet admired by all. Returned from the dead only to die mere seconds later.

They were all gone, lost to the latest of Eggman's schemes… His blight upon the world was too large to ignore now. He would have to pay for his crimes… No question about it. His fat tubby ass would be publicly humiliated, he would be tortured, and he'd be under constant surveillance in his torture facility… Yes, of course, she was talking about fat camp. And even _that_ would be lenient. Rouge vowed to personally remove the accursed lump off of the planet even if she would have to muddy her boots to do it.

But lo and behold, what great fortune hath smiled upon the world this day! For in a flash of green light, the three heroes appeared, safe and sound. Tails' body looked burnt to a crisp, the ends of his hairs blackened with soot, among other things. Sonic had several bald patches, and what was left was almost pitch black. With upward quills, he might have been mistaken for the third. The dark hedgehog, seemingly unaffected through the fire and flames. Rouge walked over to the trio, stepped right in front of their savior…

And slapped him across the face.

Tails and Sonic lowered their jaws in indignation and surprise. How could Rouge do that? I mean, yeah, they had almost gotten killed, and Shadow had taken his sweet damn time and all, but he _had_ saved their lives! Why would Rouge slap him? What the hell had _he_ done?

"I suppose I deserved that…" Shadow remarked, nursing his cheek. It was a faint tinge of red in his black fur, nearly invisible within it. Rouge had taken a step back, and was now leaning back on one leg. Her arms were folded over her chest, and her feet were a-tapping. Explanations were due to all present it seemed. Tails looked from one to the other, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Finally, Rouge broke the ice.

"Well?" Her tones were vicious, icy daggers, forcing a wince out of even those who were not on the receiving end. Rouge normally reserved this voice for when she was _really_ pissed off. Gulping, Tails silently input another program through his wrist communicator. Internally, the board prepared to get the hell out of there if things got ugly. Finally, Shadow responded.

"I know you've been worried about me. You're probably the only one. But I couldn't tell anyone. I still can't. There's something I have to do, Rouge. And Eggman had what I needed," Shadow defended himself, hinting vaguely to unknown intentions. Rouge balled her fists in anger, and Tails prepared to take flight.

"So that's it then? You went missing for _two months_ to take some stupid machine and a Chaos Emerald from Eggman? What stopped you from taking it the _first day_?!" Rouge nearly screamed, and Tails instinctively covered his ears. They began to ring softly, a sign that further contact with high decibel sound waves was inadvisable.

"I couldn't, because… well… Never mind. The point is, I couldn't. I was only _just_ able to get these." Shadow held up his new treasure, which Rouge immediately tried to swipe. But Shadow was quick enough to block the attempt. Tails took the opportunity to try to ascertain the usage of the fuse, but it was out of sight an instant later. Rouge rolled her eyes dramatically.

"Fine. I forgive you… But GUN won't. You've been AWOL for two months. The General is liable to string you up by your neck for that," Rouge pointed out. But Shadow waved the issue aside as if it were nothing. Tails raised an eyebrow. What was Shadow going to do without GUN? It was the sole reason Shadow wasn't already locked away in cold storage – his usefulness. If he pissed them off too much…

"That's not important. With this…" Shadow gestured with the fuse-like capsule. "… All debts will be paid in full. Speaking of which: Tails." Shadow directed this last comment to the kitsune. Looking around, Tails found no other two-tailed fox that Shadow could have been talking to, so he nodded to say that he was listening.

"I need you to analyze this. Keep it quiet, too. Only you and me. I specifically want to know how to program it for my own uses." Shadow tossed the capsule to Tails, not bothering to make sure that Tails caught it. The kitsune was too careful for that; technology was Tails' baby, his constant companion. Any pain to a device was pain Tails felt proportionally. So it was predictable that Tails would catch it lightly, with not a scratch left on the glass.

"Consider it payment for saving your life. Now, I gotta go… See you tomorrow, fox boy. I expect results. Rouge… I'm sorry." Shadow apologized before raising the emerald high above his head. The clearing was met with a bright flash. _Chaos Control!_ And the black one was gone, only a patch of soot to remind them that he had actually been there. Tails began to turn the capsule over in his hands, trying to discern its usage. Rouge was shaking her head in frustration off to the side, Tails noticed.

"That damn hedgehog… Why? Can't he work with _anyone_? Ugh, I give up… Good luck with that work, Tails… You'll need it. Eggman's working with some pretty crazy stuff." And with that, Rouge flew off, presumably back to GUN headquarters to give her report, mysteriously doctored to neither prove nor disprove that Shadow had been involved at all. Sonic had been mysteriously quiet throughout the proceedings, and Tails realized with a jolt that he had fallen asleep! Or unconscious, whichever.

Sighing, Tails strapped both the fuse and Sonic onto his board and flew off, going slow so as to ensure the safety of the cargo. Tails really wouldn't mind so much if Sonic fell off. It might be good for the damn hedgehog to learn some goddamn geography; running wasn't everything! But no, the flight was ominously quiet. No Eggman, no GUN, no laser fire, no cannons, not even birds would fly near him. It was oddly comforting to know that things would be back to normal for a while… besides Shadow's new plan, that is. Whatever he had cooking up his sleeve, it was big… big enough to warrant disappearing for two months. And Tails wasn't quite sure that he wanted to know what was going on, either.

Some things were better left unsaid.


	5. Chapter 4

Smoke filled the crowded pub, situated randomly into the middle of Station Square. Chaos knows how it had gotten there, considering the ratings of the game, but apparently the author didn't give a shit. Various echidnas in thick trench coats leaned against the walls, cigarettes in their mouths and beers in their hands. Drinking and smoking… yeah, that'd be good for the ratings. Next thing you knew the author'd put in a strip club…

About two blocks away, Club Rouge opened for business. No relation to the mysterious GUN agent, Rouge… or was there? Speculation ran rampant throughout the media. The police turned a blind eye.

The bar was manned by a rather tall male cat, dark black fur blending well into the darkness. Bottles flipped up and down gracefully from hand to hand, sometimes even twirled about by his tail in midair. The patrons seated in the barstools were of various species, cat, raccoon, wolf, hedgehog, fox, they were all accounted for. Even some humans had attended, but they were all seated at tables. The white noise blended perfectly into every conversation, rendering eavesdropping from anywhere farther than a few meters away impossible.

Shadow the Hedgehog was currently filling a space at the bar, fulfilling the role he was _meant_ to be playing in the game. He had a Green Hill Schnapps in one hand, a stack of bills in the other. Of course it took a lot more than a few beers to make him tipsy, but the rule was: you couldn't look badass unless you were drinking beer. Hence, the bar.

A familiar white bat entered the scene, having just returned from filing her report at GUN headquarters. Somehow, she had dodged all the right questions, and answered _just _specifically enough to satisfy the questioners. This wasn't luck, it was _skill_. Her looks immediately attracted the stares of every male patron of this particular bar, which was pretty much everyone. A gunshot blasted from somewhere near the counter. Rouge was suddenly the least popular thing in the room, as all eyes returned to where they had been previously.

That's right. You don't fuck with the guy with the gun. A seat was cleared instantly next to the hedgehog sporting the pistol with the smoking barrel. Rouge sat down, and ordered a glass of wine… typical, but not strange. Rouge was just like that. And she was another person you didn't fuck with, so everybody kept their heads down. In fact, no one left the bar either, even when the gunshot rang out. The person who had tried that the _first _time had found a new playmate: a bullet lodged in his skull.

The conversations created an impenetrable barrier of sound, allowing the two to talk without fear of spying. And so they did. Shadow continued to drink his Schnapps, placing his wad on the counter and turning the stool to face her. Rouge sipped her wine, but merely turned her head to face him. The obvious topic surfaced.

"So… Spill it." Rouge demanded, taking the first of many sips on her wine glass, which had arrived within seconds. Yeah, Shadow was _that_ popular.

"Where do I begin? You already know the details of my assignment." Shadow shrugged, mentally going over the series of events in his mind. Rouge nodded, and iterated the mission details just for the hell of it.

"You were charged with delivering a crate of munitions to the armory at Westopolis." Rouge recited, clearly having memorized the mission summary not too long ago. Shadow nodded back.

"Hey, it got there, didn't it? I found something interesting. Ran across a bloke with a Chaos Emerald. Says he was deliverin' it to Eggman himself. Contrary to my convictions, I let him live. I sent the package via Chaos Control, and… let's just say 'encouraged' the man to complete his delivery." Shadow grinned wickedly, remembering the incident with sadistic pleasure. That guy's day had _not_ been fun… Generally, having guns aimed at your balls for a couple of hours wouldn't make _anyone's _top ten lists.

"Why not just take the emerald?" Rouge raised the obvious question, the question of the hour. Why? He _could_ have just taken it. After all, a Chaos Emerald was a useful thing to have in those parts. Letting Eggman have it wasn't generally on their list of things to do, but Shadow had his reasons.

"Tell me… If I _hadn't_ been there, and Eggman had gotten his emerald another way… where would we be now?" Shadow prodded, and Rouge slumped her shoulders in defeat. There was no denying the fact that Shadow had saved the day this time.

"You win, as usual. Go on." Rouge conceded. Shadow continued.

"So I hid in the guy's truck, and snuck myself into the base like that. I made sure to strap a bomb to the underside of the car before I left, to remind the guy not to deal with guys like Eggman. He was up to something, like usual. As you have already learned, it was the Solaris Prototype, Mark II." Shadow explained, giving Rouge something to ponder. Somehow, some way, Eggman had found out a way to improve the prototype. He probably didn't get it from GUN, they hadn't done any research into the field recently. Perhaps he had just decided to return to the concept for some reason. Rouge motioned for Shadow to go on.

"And, well… You saw what happened. I placed the fake emerald into the slot, took the real one, and Chaos Controlled my way outta there. Tails was fiddling around with his hover board, and nearly got us killed… Luckily for him, I was able to start the control just before the time rift destroyed everything." Shadow finished. Rouge frowned at the vagueness of it all. It still didn't explain the _other _thing he had taken. It didn't explain why he waited two whole months. Rouge wasn't even sure how he had gotten the fake emerald in the first place, whether he had taken it on the ARK or whether he had just found it after Tails had lost it. But she could tell that there was no more information to get right now, she'd either have to wait, or be content with what she knew now.

"Alright. I'll take that… for now. Report in to GUN when you're done messing around with Eggman's junk. The General probably wants to make sure you're punished suitably." Rouge warned, standing up after downing the last of her wine. A folded bill mysteriously found its way under her glass as she turned to go. Shadow laughed a low chuckle of contempt.

"Heh. Yeah, _right_. He can kiss my ass. I'll go back when I feel like it, and he can just go suck himself if he doesn't like it." Rouge laughed as well, exiting the building in a few quick steps, out into the night. Where she went, no one knew. Shadow turned back to the bar, having already finished his beer. With a wave of his hand, another 'magically' appeared in front of him. The rating of the game went up another notch. Suddenly, saying 'damn!' every time he died back in ShtH wasn't sounding so bad anymore.


	6. Chapter 5

Tails rubbed the drowsiness out of his eyes, for it had been a long night. After several extensive hours of research, including one 15 minute break to pee and ten glasses of Red Bull, coffee, Monster, Gatorade, injections of pure sugar and caffeine, and of course… Substance X; his little nickname for Mountain Dew, he was able to finally pierce through the veil of mystery surrounding Shadow's prize. The Dew alone could have had him bouncing off the walls for a week.

But of course, with research to be done he had wasted no time. The first thing he did was run a materials analysis of the tube. He came up with diddly squat. The materials used to make it were ordinary, just a glass tube, steel ends, and aluminum shafts and cylinders within. It was obviously not the parts that made the machine, so he delved a little bit deeper. Tails popped the top on the device, and sure enough, inside there was an interface panel. Nothing too complicated, just a small hole for something to be inserted at the top of the metal tube within the glass cylinder.

Excited, Tails grabbed a screw driver. Carefully, he probed the depths of the opening. He didn't get very far before his improvised tool could go no farther. Stymied, Tails tried twisting the screwdriver, hoping that the opening acted like a screw. Close, but no cigar. Despite his best efforts, the damn thing wouldn't budge. Grumbling incoherently, the angered kitsune brought the thing to a giant torque drill press, an invention he'd modified himself personally. Quick as thought, Tails had inserted the screw driving bit into the machine, turned it on, and forced the bit into the hole.

Hardly a eureka moment: the clamp broke as soon as the bit got inside. Tails began to fume with frustration. If this hole wasn't meant to turn something, what was it supposed to do? Tails knew inventors, _inventors didn't fucking make holes they weren't going to use unless weight was a fucking problem! _And this fucking thing was _obviously_ not having any problems with its diet! So what the hell?

Tails chucked the tube in frustration, risking his tails in the process. If it broke and Shadow found out… Tails would be _screwed_. Thankfully, the sound of breaking glass _did not_ reach Tails' ears. And fox ears were very sharp, so it was safe. However, he _did_ hear _something_ from the device: a whirring sound.

Now, _that_ was a eureka moment! Excited, Tails ran over to where he'd thrown the device. It lay on the floor, the contents of the tube spinning inside like spokes on a bicycle wheel. They just kept spinning, and spinning, and spinning… They wouldn't stop. Raising an eyebrow quizzically, Tails picked up the device. It continued to whirr. Frowning, he began to walk back to his work bench. Perhaps the act of throwing the thing had made it work?

No such luck, boss. Within a few steps, the whirring stopped dead in its tracks. Tails stopped as well, angry and fearful at the same time. _HOW DARE THAT MACHINE STOP JUST AS HE WAS ABOUT TO MAKE A BREAKTHROUGH!_ Tails was about to throw the damn thing again when he had an idea. Perhaps it was not _how _he threw it; perhaps it was _where_ he threw it. The kitsune whirled around, and retraced his steps. Sure enough, the whirring began again within a few paces.

Fascinating. Tails began to play a game of hot or cold with the device. He probed the outermost boundaries of its range, stopping the machine froze. In a few minutes, he had been able to map out a rough area of where the device would work. Then came the process of finding out_ what the hell the thing was reacting to_. And so an hour of searching began, until Tails finally found what he was looking for.

It was one of those things where you smack your forehead and shout "DUH!" when you think of it. It was _that_ obvious. The device had been reacting to the Chaos Emerald within his jet board. Contemplating his stupidity, he removed the Emerald and brought it back with him to the work bench. The kitsune smiled as the machine continued to whirr, even as he stepped out of its earlier boundaries. Success!

It was now about three in the morning, Tails had no time to waste. In a frantic frenzy of activity, Tails began to work. First, he placed the tip of the Emerald into the hole, the apex of the jewel slotting nicely into the cavity. The whirring stopped immediately. Perhaps the machine was an emerald detector? But why did it work in such a short range? There _had_ to be another use! Tails tried to use the Emerald as a screwdriver, careful not to scratch the gemstone.

Eureka! As Tails turned the Emerald, the configuration of the spokes within the tube changed. Tails twisted the Emerald. The configuration changed again. Fascinating. Tails tinkered with the thing for the rest of the night, but found nothing until dawn broke. Frustrated yet again, he had removed the emerald from the slot. The machine began to whir again, and this time a sort of picture was formed by the circulating cylinders.

He saw an image of the workshop, where he was working at this very second! Everything was here, the device, him, his tools, everything. It was odd, though. The picture was fuzzy, not clear. The angle was wrong, it was impossible for the machine to have taken the picture by itself. Frowning, Tails inserted the Emerald again. The picture disappeared.

Just then, Sonic stumbled upstairs. Tails had placed him on the couch in the basement, not wanting him to disturb him in his workshop. The living room was nearly adjacent to his shop, and the living quarters downstairs. Upstairs Tails had fitted a giant supercomputer, and several solar panels to keep it running. And of _course_ Sonic had to wake up _just_ as Tails had made a breakthrough and was about to learn something new.

Tails imagined sending Sonic to the moon. That'd be fun, he thought. Sonic would run around in zero gravity for a couple of seconds, and then he'd die in the oxygen-less atmosphere. Of course, the Author _could_ just defy the laws of physics _again_ and have Sonic be able to live. But at least the hedgehog'd be out of Tails' hair.

Even as he thought this, Tails absentmindedly twisted the Emerald. Finally, he was shaken out of his daydream by Sonic turning around and walking back downstairs. Thankfully, he knew that Tails was not to be disturbed when he was working. Grinning, the kitsune removed the Emerald. The whirring began again. This time, a picture of the moon appeared, just as Tails had imagined it! The craters, the dust, the white surface, everything!

And just like that, Tails had completed his research for the day. Everything Shadow had wanted to know, Tails had figured out… which wasn't much, to be honest. Shadow had only asked Tails to figure out how to _use_ the damn thing. And so he did. And so here he was, rubbing the drowsiness out of his eyes. Finally, he could sleep. The Substance X had already begun to wear off, and Tails now needed a full day's rest to recover.

In the meantime, Shadow had finished paying for his drinks, finished terrorizing the patrons at the bar, and finished Chaos Controlling his way outta there. The barman now took the slate from beneath the counter, captioned in bright block letters: "Days without a Shadow Attack:". And beneath the caption, he erased the last number, which had been 63, and replaced it with a big fat 0.

Meanwhile, Shadow dropped out of the Chaos into the middle of Tails' workshop, JUST as the kitsune had finished his research. And the cruel sadist Shadow was, there would be no chance of Tails sleeping just yet. In fact, the golden kitsune was now cowering behind the couch, covering his eyes and screaming as loud as he could in that high, girlish voice of his.

"YAAAUGH!! THE LIGHT, THE LIGHT IT BURNS!!!" Shadow looked around, confused as to where the shrill voice was coming from for a few seconds until he sensed a disturbance in the force from behind the couch. And that was right about when the laughter started. Shadow fell to the floor, bursting into fits of uncontrollable mirth. Tails, meanwhile, was now suitably pissed off behind his improvised shield. But it didn't really matter much. Who had the gun? Shadow. Who knew how to use the Chaos Emeralds? Shadow. Who saved Tails' life? Shadow.

So he just sat there, rubbing his eyes frantically, waiting for the laughter to end. And so about a half hour later, when the sun had almost completely risen and Sonic had already woken up and walked upstairs, Tails was finally able to take a peek out over the couch. The shaking had mostly died down at that point although every few seconds another chuckle would resurface, but it was safe to assume that he was safe for the time being. Finally, the chuckles stopped altogether.

"Oh, that was a _riot_! Tails, you should be in comedy!" Shadow chuckled upon standing, which happened to be the precise moment in which Sonic came into the room. The two enemies' eyes met with a burst of sparks, reigniting the furious passion between the two. Not of hatred, more so of sibling rivalry. For though they were not linked by blood, they shared a trait known by no other: speed unparalleled.

"Sonic." Shadow began the formalities. Sonic nodded on the other side.

"Shadow." Sonic completed the gesture. It was customary for both parties to put on a show of bravado, to fight right at the beginning over who was more badass. Of course, Shadow always won because he was the dude holding the gun. And no matter how fast you could run, you could never look as cool as that dude standing on the sidewalk, a gun pointed at your retreating back. Bonus points if a bullet hit you.

"So, I see you're up and about. Get a new haircut?" Shadow smirked, holding back another fit of laughter at the hands of Sonic's burn patches. He had obviously cleaned himself up some, but there were conspicuous bald patches everywhere on Sonic's body. The blast had not been merciful.

"I'd recommend the same for you, actually. After all, nothing could make you look stupider than what you look like now." Sonic countered, ever the quick thinker when it came to insults. Aside from the various puns used in the games, Sonic _loved_ to torture Shadow using his sarcastic tongue. Shadow merely shrugged it off and ended the contest. After all, aside from going after Sonic's mom, which even _Shadow_ refused to do, there really wasn't much in the way of comebacks from that.

"Fox boy. What do you got for me?" Shadow snapped his head toward the fox, who had come out of hiding for a second to see the battle of the rivals. Obviously, it had been a mistake. With a sigh that betrayed to all in the room that he wished he were asleep, he gave his report.

"The device works in conjunction with a Chaos Emerald. If you pop the cap, there's a recess in the underside meant for the emerald. If you place it inside and twist the opening like a screwdriver, the internal configuration of cylinders is altered. It doesn't matter what order they're in, your thoughts at the time reflect the configuration. When the emerald comes near the device, the inside spins, showing a picture of the place you were thinking about at the time." Tails summarized, showing his results in a step-by-step manner for the hedgehogs to see. He popped the cap, inserted the emerald, stopping the whirring in the process, twisted the emerald, re-popped the cap, and demonstrated the picture. Shadow was satisfied. Internally, Tails breathed a sigh of relief.

"Okay. Good job, Tails. I have a job for both of you now." Shadow looked at each in turn, the singed speed demon, and the de-energized kitsune. He was still internally loath to entrust either with anything crucially important, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Of course, Sonic of all people had to continue with the insults at a time like this.

"What, can't take the heat? Better stay out of the kitchen." Sonic taunted, wagging a finger in Shadow's direction. A vein popped in Shadow's neck. Irritation was not a thing Shadow dealt with well.

"Tails, how good are your medical skills? If I put a bullet through Sonic's legs, can you make sure he doesn't die? I want him to feel some pain." Shadow warned, forcing both affected parties to gulp nervously. Tails wasn't sure if Shadow was kidding or not. You could never tell with a guy holding a gun, after all.

"Uhh… Don't aim for any lethal spots, but other than that I can heal him fine. Um… You were kidding, right? Right?" Tails' questions went unanswered. Everyone in the room knew that if Shadow hadn't been kidding, he wouldn't have asked. Sonic would have several bullet holes conveniently place themselves in his legs, and arms too for good measure without hesitation.

"No reason." Shadow said nonchalantly. His point had been made. Its purpose had been served. Now it was time for the job.

"I'll be back soon… Your job is to make sure that GUN doesn't get inside your shop for any reason until I come back. If I don't come back… I'll be sure to send back the Emeralds. Now, if you'd please, Tails…" Shadow held out his hand expectantly. Tails was tempted to cradle the Emerald protectively in his arms, to keep the gem of power close to heart. But deep down he knew it was futile to argue with the madman, so he handed it over.

"But where are you going? What _is_ that thing?" Tails asked as he handed the Emerald over. And there came that chuckle again, that low ominous laugh that sent a chill down Sonic and Tails' spines.

"Where? Not _where_, fox boy. _When_." Shadow said cryptically, setting the device in a few deft strokes nearly practiced and choreographed beforehand. It was like a dance the way he handled the machine, almost juggling it in his hands between the Emeralds and it. And then he was holding an emerald in each hand, the red and the yellow gleaming in the post-dawn light. Between them, the device whirred faster than Tails had ever gotten it to go, the picture it formed glowing and expanding until it was more like a vision than a mere 2-D image. And Tails suddenly knew what it was:

A homing beacon. A temporal waypoint, intended to anchor the spell to a specific place. All Shadow had to do was decide the _when_, as the _where_ was taken care of beforehand. Usually, two people performed the spell, one holder of the emerald taking care of each task. But this time, Shadow was to leave it to Eggman's machine.

The Solaris Prototype Mark I had had no such thing. As such, the teleportees were merely sent to that exact spot in a random time. But this time, Shadow was going to a specific place, at just the right time to change history.

The image became completely visible just as Shadow shouted the words of power, that phrase that echoed within the very air upon which they traveled. A giant orb of metal, floating on a sea of darkness solidified upon the canvas of time. Stars gleamed in the background like tiny white Christmas lights, adding to the picture the comfort of Space.

"CHAOS…_ CONTROL!_"

And he was gone in a flash of emerald light. The image vanished, leaving behind only a vacuum to be replaced by air. A rush of wind from behind Tails and Sonic signified that he really _was_ gone. And this time… Neither knew whether he would come back.

A creature fell down from the rafters, landing deftly and easily onto the floor of the workshop. Within seconds, the newcomer was identified as Rouge. And her anxiety did not betray any hint of good news.

"GUN is on its way. They're coming for him." Rouge told the pair, who looked from each other to Rouge, then back at each other again. They were in quite a dilemma… Shadow, if he succeeded, should have come back within seconds. And still, he was gone.

And so the explanation began, assuming that Shadow the Hedgehog had died. And so he did, in a way. For far away in the past, Shadow the Hedgehog was to fail in the one task he had sought to complete.


	7. Chapter 6

Somewhere, in the distant past, a green flash burst into existence. It was the green flash that usually accompanied a Chaos Control, expanding from a single point like a supernova from a star. In seconds, a rift within the light had opened, and from within the rift came a being. The dark figure dropped to the metal floor of his new setting, which had now materialized as metal underneath his knees and hands. Out of the rift came two gems, one red and one yellow, two priceless emeralds gleaming in the verdant green aura. A small cylindrical device emerged as well before the glow faded, the rift closing behind the figure.

Shadow the hedgehog picked up the Emeralds, feeling them disappear into his body as he held them. Next he picked up the device, which unfortunately was _not_ built to disappear. So he just held onto it for now, which raised the question… How the hell to disguise himself? People would recognize him here, so he needed to either make himself scarce or go _in cognito_.

As if some Author was sitting invisibly up in the sky, creating new worlds just from a stroke of his fingers on the keyboard, Shadow noticed a broom closet behind him. Without a second thought as to how the hell it had gotten there,_ why_ the hell it was there, and _why the hell it had random dark cloaks hanging inside of it_, he dove inside and threw a dark hood over himself. It was the kind of dark cloak that you'd see in shadowy members of obscure organizations from other dimensions, or dark shadows of the netherworld come to claim the happiness and souls of ordinary people, or possibly just that creeper down the street who likes to stalk you as you walk to school every morning. Shadow didn't really stop to ponder all of this; he had other things to worry about. The Author is just trying to give you a feel of what the cloak looks like. Why the hell do _you_ have to make it so complicated?!?!

Oh, what was _Shadow_ thinking? Right, well… He was currently contemplating what the hell he was doing. The first phase of the job was already done, staking out Eggman's base for nigh upon two months and collecting the chronoubiquitor. It was designed, Shadow surmised, to anchor to a specific place within its configuration, powered by the Chaos Emerald. Its user's only task was to pick the time and initiate the Control.

Shadow had also taken the liberty of raiding GUN's file cabinets, which the General had already left for dead in his office. In them, he had already found _several_ papers detailing the event he had come to prevent. From them, he had been able to find the date in question and the events which had occurred therein.

GUN had noticed several troubling projects being worked on in the ARK at the time. Examining records from Robotnik's crew, they were able to determine that more than a tenth of the scientists had been killed in accidents aboard the ship in less than a year. That warranted an inspection by the agency, which was what they had wanted all along, so a unit of soldiers docked into the ship.

This was where the accounts got fuzzy and diverse. The soldiers themselves never survived, not a one made it back down to Earth. A Retrieval team found one dead body… that was it. The recording chip within the man's helmet held very informative, confusing, and chaotic data all at the same time.

The recording starts as the soldier exits the pod that connected to the ARK. The soldiers moved as a unit, a phalanx of gun-toting humans walking through the metallic hallways. As they got to one of the research wings the feed suddenly went wild. The reports mentioned some explosion-like sounds, just before the feed went dark. From then on, they had to go by sound alone, for something in the helmet had gone dead. But the audio held more than enough for the investigators…

The soldiers were frantic, shouting orders at the top of their lungs. Fully automatic machine guns could be heard in the foreground, all pointed at one thing. From the fluctuations in volume of the bullets, the reporters could infer that their target was moving, and _fast_. Within a minute, the shouting had stopped, and only panting filled the microphone. It was so loud, the audio was hard to hear for a few seconds, but audio manipulation programs were able to partially decipher the missing segment.

It was orders. The leader of the unit, who had happened to survive the massacre, was sending the remaining soldiers out to search the halls. Anyone who looked like a scientist was ordered to be shot dead on the spot. Specimens were ordered to be taken alive if possible, but _no risks_ were to be taken. From there, the reports followed the journeys of the soldier as he and his two buddies executed twenty three scientists among the next few hours. And then came different noises. Footsteps. A colossal blast sounded from somewhere close to the mic, and a body fell to the ground. And then everything went silent. From then on, there was no data, so the reports mentioned that the analysists assumed the mic had gone dead as well.

So Shadow knew vaguely what was up. The GUN soldiers were beaten, _badly_, and were ordered to kill the scientists. That was why they targeted Maria, and of course, that was why Shadow was here. Shadow's job was to make sure that the little shooting incident with Maria never happened.

It occurred to the cloaked hedgehog that he had been standing in that closet for quite some time. So he promptly Chaos Controlled toward the central core of the facility, where there would be a fucking map. Amnesia _did_ have its drawbacks… chief among them being the loss of memory of several important pieces of documentation, forgetting several key scraps of information, and the overall constant feeling of having something at the tip of your tongue, except you never suddenly remembered it half an hour later.

Workers glanced up from their workstations as the bright light appeared in their midst. Of course, such unusual things happened all the time on this ship, so at first they didn't give it a second thought. Then again, that was before they did their double take. They had never seen a _person_ come out of one of these before, and none of these people had ever walked up to a map, studied it for a minute, then disappeared into thin air again with a similar flash.

One or two scientists up and jumped off their platform into the vacuum of space right on the spot, finally convinced that being in space for this long had driven them crazy. Others shot looks of confusion or worry between each other. Several stood up and proclaimed that it was a sign of the apocalypse, and immediately kneeled down and prayed. All of them were shocked violently as about half a million volts shuddered throughout their systems, as Robotnik's work enforcing units did their jobs: another reason for the suicides, although not the primary. Robotnik sure did know how to make people work hard…

With a flash of emerald light, Shadow reappeared in front of an elegant metal doorway. It was drab gray metal, rimmed on the side with bright yellow and crossed on the front with alternating stripes of red and yellow. Demolition charges were rigged on the four corners of the door, _juuuust_ in case someone wanted to break in for whatever reason. The hedgehog spent a couple of seconds laughing at the stupidity of it, in which I will explain to you why nothing of real note has happened yet.

You see, in a combination of GUN stupidity and Shadow's thoughtfulness, Shadow had arrived a full day before the actual event would take place. Because of GUN's shoddy workmanship with its filing, the date was written wrong, and so was the time. Also, Shadow had wanted to come in early enough to get his bearings on the ARK as well. Coincidentally, the difference between GUN laziness and Shadow's plans had left him with one day to prepare, of which he was completely unaware of.

And son of a gun, there he went. With a violent gust of steam and a robotic feminine voice over the intercom stating that the door had been opened, the door… opened. Shadow was treated to a large rectangular room, made out of the same bright metal as the rest of the ship. Computer screens lined every wall, some spanning half the room, others merely the size of lunchboxes. In the center of this room, seated in a swivel chair surrounded by a digital keyboard, was none other than…

Doctor Gerald Robotnik, creator of Project Shadow, of FinalHazard, and of many other monsters besides… Father of Maria… and commanding scientist aboard the space shuttle ARK.

The swivel chair turned to face him, and Shadow was treated to another look at his creator, his pseudo father. He was bald, of course, which was a general characteristic of the entire male line of his family. No one knew who the mother of Maria had been, for any who had known had died in the ARK incident. It was possible that he might have cloned himself to create an offspring. The patriarch of the Robotnik line had a gray mustache, lined with bristly hairs earned with age and wisdom. The scientist favored a white labcoat that served him well to hide his chubby physique. For the first time in fifty years, Shadow could hear his voice again, in person. He had to fight back déjà vu. A blast from the past…

"Well, well. What do we have here, a visitor? Welcome, stranger, to the glorious Space Colony ARK! I may ask you what your business is, please. We have some other guests coming tomorrow, so I am afraid I must decline any pleas for domestic housing." Robotnik had cut Shadow off before he could even begin, giving a vain effort to deny attempts to stay in the ARK for a long period of time. To Shadow, the message was clear. _Please kindly state your business then get the hell off my ship, or my 'guests' will kick your ass._

And then Shadow caught himself. _Tomorrow_? He had purposefully come earlier than this! Somehow, there must have been a mistake… Sweat began to form on Shadow's brow as he began his inquiry.

"Forgive me, doctor, but who are these guests that are visiting tomorrow, if I may be so bold as to ask?" Shadow politely inquired, hastily concocting a sense of manners. Normally, he was never this polite to anyone – no one deserved his respect enough. Tails and Rouge only received slightly better treatment than most. But Robotnik… he held the doctor in the highest regard. Those who knew him would be shocked to find Shadow using something _other_ than rude sarcasm in the presence of anyone. Especially a superior.

"Ah. It is common knowledge, so I see no harm. They are enquirers from the Guardian Units of Nations, come to begin a routine inspection. Now, I might ask you, who are you? What is your business here?" Gerald explained in a relaxed, almost calm manner. For as cruel as sadistic as the Robotnik line was, Gerald was peculiar in that he had a sense of leadership and honor. The qualities that would be put to the test most severely during the incident…

"My name… is of no importance compared to the news I am about to give." Shadow began ominously, his dark hood concealing the look of stress that had begun to etch itself upon his features. This was it. A chance to stop all of this right at the source, to stop the madness. The doctor leaned forward, his interest suddenly peaked. This did not happen often for matters outside of research. A good sign, perhaps? Or a terrible omen…?

"The GUN soldiers coming tomorrow, as you say… are going to be the catalyst for the end of the ARK, nay, _your world_ as you know it, for unless you stop those soldiers from performing their inspection… Your efforts will have been wasted all these years, doctor." Shadow stopped, faltering in his speech. He didn't know what to do from here. The nervous hedgehog couldn't even tell if he had persuaded Robotnik at all… But his hopes rose as Robotnik beckoned him forward. Shadow's legs began to walk even before he knew it. He had taken a few steps before he realized his folly, a trick he had seen before. How could he be so stupid?

"Forgive me, guest, for disbelieving your claims." Robotnik calmly spoke, pressing a series of commands on his keyboard. A glass tube rose around him, summoned from the depths of a circular depression in the floor that he had failed to notice. It had gotten Sonic, it had gotten young Shadow, and now the trick had succeeded on Shadow here and now again. The hedgehog was too stunned to react for a second, too startled to believe what he was seeing and hearing.

"But unfortunately, I cannot go around believing the claims of every guest that comes into this room. So forgive me once again, but I must restore order. Sayonara… my guest." Robotnik dramatically proclaimed, pressing another button on his keyboard. With a loud hissing of steam, and a vacuum blast, Shadow was forcibly ejected inside his pod from the ARK. Gerald watched on his monitors as the pod floated out a ways into deep space, before detonating in a glorious explosion. The doctor waited until the light faded back into darkness, and he was sure that there was no debris left. Then, he promptly swiveled back around to the computer screen, and returned to work. Just another casualty in the fight for scientific achievement.

Back in the broom closet, a bright green flash erupted. For, like Sonic, he had seen the wisdom of using Chaos Control to get out of tight situations. Especially situations where the alternative was painful incineration in an explosion-esque environment. Those types of places generally led to a _negative_ impact on a person's lifespan, drastically reducing it to the age they were currently at at the time. So Shadow survived his little date with death, for the umpteenth time in his life. Someone somewhere was probably shouting at his tv screen, yelling at the Sonic Team to get original with Shadow's plotlines. The Author was probably being sued at this very moment for plagiarism, copying events right out of a storyline. But then again, no one reading this really cares, do they? They just want to read the story. So… Onward!

Thanks to Gerald's shoddy security, Shadow was actually able to roam the hallways freely without fear of being watched on the doctor's monitor screens. What those screens were for, if they weren't for camera output, Shadow didn't want to know. Nevertheless, Shadow stepped out of the closet and chose a direction at random. If he was to stop the events of catastrophe tomorrow, he would have to know the territory better than they would. Hence, the walking instead of warping technique.

Pretty soon, Shadow found himself to be lost within the labyrinth that was the corridors lined within the ARK's interior. It all looked the same, in that the walls were all plated with metal, various metallic tubes and wires jutting off at regular, specific intervals heading to who knows where within the complex system no doubt designed by the doctor himself… Sometimes he would find a window, and know that he was in the outermost boundary of the hallways, but it didn't do him much good.

He continued to wander in this way, lost in his own home territory, when he stumbled upon a large anteroom. Somehow, he had gotten from the outer edge of the sphere to the inner core of the facility, where there were several interesting things to see. Foremost among them were a computer terminal in which one screen lingered that seemed to have its purpose rooted in calling an elevator, a digital map that had the distinctive and almost idiotic red dot saying 'YOU ARE HERE', and another huge circular depression in the floor. Shadow sidestepped around it, no longer trusting _anything_ on this damn ship that looked like a circular hole.

Shadow walked over and took a longer and more careful survey of the map. The first time he had viewed one of these, inciting various suicides among the doctor's staff, he had merely been looking for the doctor's office, which was situated in the upper half of the ARK, in the core of the complex. Now, as he looked on the map, he noticed an underlying order which had escaped him earlier on. The ARK was divided into four quadrants, with specific purposes for each.

The upper left hand quadrant was dubbed the living quarters. On the map, the section grew to fit the entire screen, and a detailed drawing made of the inner workings. The inner portion, the part that faced the core of the sphere, was devoted entirely to the elevator. The elevator went to twelve different floors, and from there the hallways went to the very end of the sphere. These hallways branched into other hallways, with rooms built into either side until it looked like the roots of some great tree welded to the side of the ARK. But as he lost interest in the housing arrangements, the picture faded back into the previous view, and Shadow was able to look into the next quadrant.

This quadrant was on the lower left hand quadrant, and was labeled "Weapons Development". Shadow cringed as he remembered FinalHazard, the giant beast that he had fought along with Sonic as they rushed to the Eclipse Cannon. In this section, the elevator only had two floors to stop on. The bottom portion of the quadrant dealt with the Cannon, while the upper quadrant had all sorts of labels on it that Shadow was unable to decipher. Shrugging, he switched his gaze over to the lower right hand side.

This section was labeled "Medical Research", and had several elevator floors. From the elevator doors, just one long corridor reached out to the end of its boundary. An offshoot of this hallway would include a mini laboratory, fitted to experiment with various diseases. Shadow could actually read a couple of these, and was able to make out the names of various diseases. AIDS was prominently displayed in a good half of the rooms on the first floor. Others included Hepatitis, Cancer, and several other potentially fatal diseases.

The last and final quadrant of the ARK was labeled none other than Scientific Research. Shadow could actually make out the labels on this part of the map, probably because he recognized a lot of the names. Project Chaos… Project Gizoid… Project Shadow. His room was located near the very end of the hallway of his floor, and it was the only room that was actually a _room_. The others were actually half rooms, protected by a wall of thick protective glass behind which the actual project lived. Project Chaos' room was actually ¾ of a room, while the viewing panel was only ¼ of the room.

Shadow could have spent forever looking at that map, memorizing every nuance of the colony's corridors. But of course, the sense of urgency returned with gusto quite quickly, and Shadow wasted no time in Chaos Controlling over to the computer terminal. Somehow, without thinking about it, his fingers flew across the keyboard. It was almost as if it had been an old friend who had gone away for a while, and they had just recently met up and were able to catch up on recent events. In other words, Shadow's fingers did the thinking, while the hedgehog's mind itself took a backseat.

Within seconds, a loud dinging noise sounded as elevator doors opened to the side. Now _that_ was what Shadow loved about technology these days. You didn't have to wait. When you shot at someone, you could expect them to be dead. When you asked for an elevator, it came down for you. When you told someone to go fuck himself, he went right home and… Whoa, got off target there. So Shadow entered the elevator, not bothered in the slightest as the doors closed right behind him. A tacky elevator music theme played in the background, but with a carefully aimed Chaos Spear, the speaker died out pretty quickly.

Shadow selected the second floor of the weapons quadrant, which just happened to be on the opposite side of him. He felt the elevator spin around, turning the doors to face the other side. And then with a sudden lurch, the elevator shot down the shaft as if in free fall on Earth. But it wasn't fooling anyone, for everyone on the ARK knew that the gravity was artificial. In a seemingly miniscule amount of time, the elevator arrived at its destination, and Shadow suddenly felt the liabilities of gravity once again as his stomach slammed onto the floor. The car had fallen so fast, Shadow had begun to lose contact with the bottom at all, and had been floating in space.

Shadow stepped out of the elevator to find a giant warehouse of weapons. It was as if someone had taken the most dangerous tools of war known to society, added a few of their own devising, and stored them all in one convenient place to be used if someone pissed them off enough. Wait a second… that sounded familiar…

Shadow shrugged it off and looked at all of the wonderfully deadly things that were stored here. He could go on a killing spree for _years_ with these beautiful toys. One particular weapon caught his eye, and forced him to saunter over and check it out. It looked like a tiny crossbow, except that instead of shooting arrows, it shot what looked to be shurikens. Shadow also had a funny feeling that the antenna sticking out of the barrel of the weapon was used for something painful as well, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it…

Oh well. Shadow moved on. He saw antiques of old nuclear warheads, long barreled rifles, laser guns, homing missiles, parasite warfare, even some primitive replicas of ancient spears and swords. Some weapons looked like they had been modeled upon these, however. One particularly sharp long sword held his gaze for longer than the rest, for he could recognize it for what it was: Black Arms weaponry. It reminded him of his past, something he didn't want to think about right now. He passed by it in disgust, not sparing it a second glance.

The room was fascinating, and he could have spent hours there. So he did. On Earth, the sun would have lowered by a large degree already, but on the colony Shadow hardly noticed as the hours went by. He spent an extra long time studying the various Black Arms weaponry, screwing the feelings of nostalgia. Shadow recognized weapons that he himself had wielded, putting them to good use slaughtering aliens and soldiers alike in his mad frenzy to learn more about his past.

Finally, several hours after he had entered the room, he left in a hurry… in a hurry to escape his past once again, now that he had learned what he was. Ignorance was bliss in this area. Some things were better left unsaid, and Shadow wished fervently that things had turned out differently. But there was no going back… Not unless this mission turned out to be a success. If he finished this mission… all debts would be paid in full.

Shadow stepped into the elevator once again with this in mind, rekindling his resolve. He knew what his purpose here was. And tomorrow, he would make a difference. He spent the ride up the elevator reminding himself of this, telling himself in his own little way that everything was going to be okay in the end, even when he knew that it probably wouldn't be. Stories in the real world rarely had happy endings, and the Author of this tale was probably sitting there, just waiting for a chance to smite him for the hell of it.

Shadow had pressed a button at random, his mind wandering to other subjects. So as the car began to slow and the doors opened, Shadow was surprised to find himself in the Medical wing of the ARK. Not surprised in a 'Wow I didn't think that would happen' sort of surprise, surprised in a 'so that's what happened…' sort of way.

Shadow stepped out into a long corridor lined with doorways, filled with medical scientists scurrying about one way or another. Almost as soon as he had taken a step, a detoxifying agent was introduced into the air around him, sterilizing him in a _good_ way. So he was clean, and didn't infect any of the research going on here.

In this corridor, the names on the doorways represented fatal diseases known to humankind. In fact, more than half of the wing was devoted to HIV alone. Shadow had heard whispers of this pathogen among the GUN researchers in the future. Apparently, the virus was not deadly in and of itself, but in and of the condition it caused in the body. It could negate the immune system, render the infected vulnerable to even the common cold. Shadow found himself glad that he had had no desire to stay with Rouge for longer than was necessary.

There were other diseases being researched here as well. There were a few doors devoted to Influenza, which had a nasty habit of resurfacing despite numerous attempts to stop it. No matter how many vaccinations they had created, a new strain always popped up. Shadow had overheard Tails giving a lecture on the disease earlier, on how the virus changed constantly to new strains, adapting itself to its host or to new conditions sporadically. Ergo, it was nearly impossible to vaccinate against it.

Shadow saw many more diseases, most of which were completely harmless in his time. Tetanus, Small Pox, others such as these. Some were even futilely trying to prevent Chicken Pox by vaccination, which Shadow vaguely remembered in the future. But it was silly to vaccinate children when they could just easily get the disease and get it over with right away. What was the point? It wasn't as if it was harmful.

And that was when Shadow found his way to the _end_ of the corridor, which had devoted itself to cancer. He smirked, knowing that if the scientists of the future hadn't found it by now, these scientists had no hope. Some were already banging their heads against the wall in frustration. More than one scientist was being restrained by two or three others each, raving mad and trying to kill themselves.

Shadow entered one of these rooms for kicks, thinking that watching a couple of scientists kill themselves would be a fun exercise. He hadn't laughed in quite a while. Upon entering the room the scientists looked up for but a second, just to ensure that it wasn't Robotnik or anyone higher up like that. They seemed to work harder anyway, not wanting to take any chances. Shadow perused the aisles of workers, trying to make heads or tails of what they were doing. None of it made any sense.

Suddenly, one of the scientists got up and began shouting. Shadow strained his ears to catch what he was saying. There was complete silence in the room as the man made his announcement.

"I've done it! I've found the cure to cancer! Eureka!" The man shouted, and Shadow became slack-jawed in an instant. It wasn't possible. The future didn't have the cure yet, how could they have found it in the past? Suddenly, everything became clear to him. Gasps flew throughout the room as the man fell to the ground, breaking the beaker containing his life's work. The glass shattered, and somehow the contents vaporized upon contact with the air.

The medical students rushed to help the man, tried to get his heart steady… But it was futile. They just didn't know enough back then. Their fellow scientist died in their arms, unable to tell them with his last breath the secret that he now took with him to his grave. Shadow bowed his head respectfully to the one man who had done the impossible, and had paid the price.

Of course, that didn't stop him from laughing as soon as he left the room. The sounds of his hysteria echoed all along the hallways, continuing even after he had walked down them and into the elevator again. He nearly went into convulsions on the floor his chest was heaving so much. To think that they were so close, and they had lost it! Ironically, the first one to advance the medical field died because the medical field wasn't advanced enough yet. That was the kind of irony that comedians exploited, the funny anecdotes getting the crowd going. The reader is most likely wondering where the hell the Author is coming up with these ideas. And they'll never know.

About half an hour into his laughing session, he realized that the doors had closed in the elevator a _long_ time ago, and he hadn't pressed a button. Smacking himself in the forehead, he got up and pressed a random button. Gone were the days where he could know exactly where he was going. Right now, he was just killing time. So the elevator started up, and he began to recover from his throbbing chest. With a sudden lurch, the car stopped, and the doors opened. Shadow stepped out into one of the hallways of the research division. He didn't even bother to check which floor he had ended up on, it didn't really matter.

The hallway was wide as well as long. A tank or two could have easily had space to drive down to the end and back without being cramped overmuch. Various scientists were walking by, some clustered around windows that were beside each door. There were plaques set into the wall next to each door, stating the name of the specimen and the lead scientist of that project. The glass was all two-way, Shadow could see, so that the scientists could observe the creature. A name stood out on one of the plaques, which had several scientists clustered about the window. Shadow walked over to see what the big deal was.

The room was more of a cage than a room. A giant blue monster that resembled a jellyfish was restrained by giant machines with large chains that looked to be made out of glowing plasma attached to the creature's appendages. Shadow remembered _this_ creature all too clearly. He remembered that night, fifty years ago from the present, when he had followed Maria to destroy the Chaos clones. The clear blue tentacles that wrapped around him, threatening to swallow him whole… It was truly a hell in and of itself.

Shadow shook his head, snapping him out of the trance. The scientists were all muttering softly, pointing to this thing and that from their side of the glass. Shadow had been shunted to the outside of the crowd at this point, so he fought his way back to the front of the pack to see what was up. The creature looked to have escaped its shackles, and was now about to break loose altogether. The scientists were doing all they could to keep up the force fields and repair the machinery keeping the monster chained within. Shadow scoffed. If they couldn't keep it in its cage, why keep it at all?

A scientist pressed a button located on a panel below the window. The air inside the cage-like room filled with high voltage electricity, lighting the air with sparks. The creature fell to the ground, exhausted for but a moment. But that moment was enough for the scientists, as one of the people next to Shadow pressed a big red button. Shadow half expected a synthetic male's voice to say "That was easy…" but it didn't happen. Instead, the glowing chains reappeared, binding the creature back into its place. A lot of the scientists wiped their brows, and several sighed in relief. Shadow just laughed. These scientists were dumbasses.

Shadow took his leave of them. Walking down the hallways, he read some of the plaques on either side of the room. Some were just idiotic names, like Bessie or Wyllis. One was named Project X, and there was no window, it was just a picture of Chuck Norris. The scientists avoided this one like the plague, as if Chuck could _actually_ come out and round house kick them. This elicited another chuckle from the now easily amused Shadow.

Shadow didn't even notice until he was five feet away, but he suddenly found himself right in front of his birthplace. The plaque in front of him read… "Project Shadow". He just stood there, lost in memory for a few seconds, before he checked his own mirror. It was surprisingly free of scientists, so he could get a clear view of his room's contents.

He saw just one thing in the room: a cylindrical hollow tube that took up the entirety of the available space made of opaque greenish glass. A metal door was fixed plainly to the front of the glass, and at the top of the cylinder there were a bunch of tubes and computer readouts reaching into the ceiling. A single tube dangled down in the center of the cylinder, with a breathing apparatus attached to the business end. Inside of the tube lay… nothing. There was no greenish liquid, no specimen, no nothing.

"Excuse me…" Shadow felt a hand tapping his shoulder. He turned around slowly, confused as to why someone would bother coming over and talking to him. And this was the point where Shadow could have easily died of a heart attack because he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

He was faced with none other than the daughter of Gerald Robotnik… Maria. Behind her, he saw himself as well, minus the height, the cold furious red eyes, the feeling of dread and doom, the arrogance, and the homicidal mania that he saw in himself. He was just an innocent child… Both him, and Maria… He was speechless.

"Um… Who are you?" Maria said, or rather, seemed to say. Shadow wasn't thinking straight at this point, as memory after memory flashed through his mind. He remembered the first time he saw Maria, waking up to find her right in front of his tube, watching him. He remembered the time they pranked the medical labs, mixing up all of the chemicals and running away. Nostalgia took its toll, and he didn't snap out of it until a new voice entered the cacophony of murmurs and Maria talking.

"… We're talking to you." Shadow snapped to attention upon hearing the familiar sound of his own voice, using the kind of commanding tone that he usually employed against others himself. It cleared his mind better than a drill sergeant with a cattle prod ever could. Now was the time to think up a diversionary tactic…

"… It wouldn't matter to either to you anyway. You'll likely learn soon enough…" Shadow cryptically muttered. The younger version of himself seemed to get really pissed off at this, and would have likely said something else, had Shadow not beaten him to it.

"Maria… I'm sorry." He said, turning his head away in shame. This shocked both of them, and Maria took a second to respond.

"What? Why? I don't even know you." She said, while the young Shadow raised his eyebrow in suspicion. If Shadow knew anything about himself, things would likely get ugly if he stayed for much longer.

"You _do_ know me… I'm just sorry… I didn't come sooner." That last part really wouldn't have made much sense to them had they even known who said it. Turning toward his alter ego, he added, "Shadow… Keep her safe. _Never_ let her go." Which probably wasn't the best choice of words. Shadow stepped in front of Maria, and he recognized the spark of anger in his eye that said that things were going to go down the _hard _way.

Of course, he hadn't brought those damn Chaos Emeralds for nothing. And in an instant, he was gone. Nothing flashy happened as he Controlled. No blinding emerald light, no time space temporal portal, nothing. Shadow merely faded away, an outline of his body lingering for mere seconds after he was gone, leaving Maria and his younger self behind.

Shadow reappeared back into the closet, which was pretty much his safe house right about now. He had pretty much had enough of exploring the ARK after that. Now… it was time to sleep. Fishing around the closet, he conveniently found an alarm clock. Midnight already… The report had said it had happened in the morning… so he set the clock for eight. Then he passed out on the floor. He was exhausted for the first time in a long time. He just leaned back against the wall and drifted off. The last thought that went through his mind haunted his ironically dreamless sleep. _I really _am_ sorry, Maria… I don't know if I can save you, but I'm just sorry I didn't think of it sooner…_


	8. Chapter 7

_Boom……_

_Boom………….._

_CRASH!_

The closet shook, throwing Shadow across the tiny room into the other side, impacting with a loud thump to rival the explosions that had woken him. At first thought, one might think the ARK was about to explode, but that was impossible. So another hypothesis… It was under attack. Shadow grabbed the alarm clock to find that he had set the clock to the wrong eight o clock. In frustration, he chucked it against the wall, breaking everything inside except the visual readout, which flashed the word "Shit" once before flickering off. Growling, he whipped out the red Chaos Emerald and let fly with the Controlling.

"**CHAOS CONTROL!**" With a great flash, he reappeared in the Research wing, which was the likely source of the blasts. And of course, he was right: Project Chaos had escaped from its cage. The giant gelatinous monster was tearing into the massive GUN forces stationed around it as they fired uselessly into its skin. No bullets penetrated far enough to reach the core intelligence within, its brain. Rather large spheres of blue jell were budding off of the monster every second, flooding out of the lab like an army. Hmm… now Shadow knew where _those_ came from.

The GUN forces seemed to figure out that there was no hope of victory, so they ran back and huddled up. A quick decision was made by the commander, and the forces spread out. Shadow could hear it, too. The dread order… Kill all scientists. He wanted to tear into them all, destroy them before they had a _chance_ to get near Maria, but there was no time. And he couldn't alter the past _this_ much. Sighing, he raised the Chaos Emerald yet again.

With a series of flashes quick enough to make Sonic ashamed, Shadow disappeared and reappeared in the exact same spot, albeit with a little souvenir… Shadow held in his hand a Black Arms sword, dark matter swirling and forming in the shadowy metal of the blade. Tinges of dark pink ran through the blade, betraying a core of alien technology. It was a weapon meant for one purpose: to kill. It felt, in Shadow's hands, like a pencil in the hands of a schoolchild, or a bat in the hands of a professional baseball player. It was an extension of his own arm. The Chaos Emerald fit less than snugly into his left hand, which was stabilizing the bottom half of the hilt held in his right. However… that wouldn't matter for what he was about to do.

"Project Chaos… Do you… want to die?" Shadow asked, looking straight into the brain of the monster, and he could feel its presence staring back at him. A lone star western tune might have been playing in the background and neither would notice nor care. The GUN soldiers were gone. It was just the two… both just wild creations of the same mad doctor. Both born and bred to kill. And today… one would destroy the other.

Without warning, Shadow disappeared in a bright flash. The creature didn't move, but its senses spun wildly out of control as it attempted to locate the annoying cloaked creature. It roared in pain as a gash was torn into its hide, Shadow swinging wildly from behind Project Chaos. Growling, the creature called its buds to its aid. Shadow had appeared right above the creature, dropping down and slashing vertically. Now he had landed on the ground, and was surrounded by about twelve of the gelatinous spheres that had budded off from Chaos.

"Hardly a fair fight… For you, that is." Shadow scoffed, as the ring of creatures contracted ever tighter. He remained still as a statue, just watching… waiting… waiting for the right moment to strike. Project Chaos stared back, watching its clones circle in for the kill. Surely there was no way the cloaked one could win, it must have thought. Surrounded by impossible odds, there was no way there was bite to his bark…

How wrong it was. In an emerald flash, he disappeared. However, the clones seemed to know what to do this time. Shadow reappeared at the other end of the hallway, right in front of the window facing deep space. The creatures advanced as a wave, one after the other, spread out across the hallway. No way out but through the gauntlet. Just the way he liked it.

With a violent snarl, he charged forward, his sword throwing him ever so slightly off balance, but not enough to make much of a difference. Shadow leapt into the air, performing a front flip that would make an Olympic gymnastic competitor ashamed. Once, twice, three times, and more he flipped, rending gashes over and over into the unlucky clone unfortunate enough to come close to his sword. And he didn't even slow down to watch the scenery as he landed. _One down, eleven to go_, he thought.

Two clones converged at once upon him, thinking that the Buddy System might help them out a bit. But this wasn't the playground, and Shadow wasn't just some human pedophile or something. The tiny children rushed in, trying to beat off the big, bad cloaked person that only wanted to kill them mercilessly. Such heartless bastards, right? Shadow made quick work of them, slashing once, twice with his sword. That's all it took, as the creatures' brains disintegrated after being torn in two by the wicked blade._ Three down, nine to go_, he chuckled. This was more fun than punching babies! Not that he had, of course… Ok, yes he had, but they were pissing him off. But that was beside the point now.

He was still running toward Project Chaos, who, like any evil villain, was just sitting there; waiting for its creatures to do its dirty work. Suddenly, he was reminded of Eggman, and he instantly saw the family resemblance. After some thinking, he reflected that they were both a lot alike. Both could pass for large moons, neither could be mistaken for a human being, and both had huge brains they _never used_.

Of course, this diversion took less than a second in real time, while Shadow now had to contend with another four creatures. These were going to play Red Rover, it seemed, forming an "impenetrable" wall that Shadow would not be able to pass through. However, these idiots had not learned that walls should be made out of _hard_ substances, not gelatin. Of course, it didn't really matter to Shadow whether the barrier was made out of water or titanium. Considering that the wall was a mere fifteen feet long, Shadow was able to literally run circles around it. After a few passes, the wall ceased to look like a wall, and more like sliced swiss cheese that was rapidly falling to the floor. Shadow took his leave of the dead clones. _Seven down, five to go._

The last five had been suitably warned by the other seven, and now had begun to cower behind their boss in fear. Shadow laughed at their cowardice, warping behind each one and ending it without effort. In another second, there were no more clones to contend with. Now this begs the question, why not just do that in the first place instead of going through all of the trouble of warping so far away? Well, SEGA was kind of out of ideas for levels and wanted to make the final boss level longer… Because seriously, who would want to play a game and get to the final boss fight against Project Chaos to have Shadow shank the boss within five seconds? Other than absolutely no one on earth? Absolutely no one in the universe.

And now it was Shadow versus Project Chaos yet again, who had been gracious enough to stand still the entire time while Shadow dealt with his minions. Now he was going to act like the fat bastard he was and start bouncing all over the hallway, trying to land on Shadow. The _smart_ thing to do would have been to grab onto Shadow like his clones had been doing and violate him sexually until he begged for mercy and gave all of his rings away, but we've already covered the fact that Chaos doesn't use that oversized brain of his. Hence, the bouncing.

Shadow yawned, walking straight under the bouncing creature and stabbing it as it came down. Chaos was now hurt and angry, so it tried a new tactic… _exactly what it did the last time, only faster_. Yeah, that'll work. Shadow proceeded to stab it another two or three times, before Chaos finally realized that it was a bad idea to do that. But there was no more time to switch tactics now, because Shadow had just realized that wasting time here was _not_ a good idea when there were literally dozens of soldiers searching the hallways for scientists.

"Enough of this, CHAOS CONTROL!" Shadow shouted, appearing right in front of Chaos and using the sword as an oversized bat. Project Chaos slammed against the right wall, doing wonders for its unused brain. It jumped right back into the fray, but it really was no use at this point. Shadow had already warped right behind it. With a great overhand swing, he cleaved Chaos in two, just barely missing the core intelligence. At this point, the creature now knew conclusively that it was going to die. Shadow could see the fight leave its broken body, and decided to end its life quickly.

"Relax, and you shall feel no pain… Sayonara… Project Chaos."

"Chaos Spear!"Was the last phrase Project Chaos ever heard, as millions of chaotic projectiles ravaged its body. Throughout the ARK… the other budded creatures began to wail as they died like their creator. Shadow spent no time celebrating. He knew not which port he had been cast out on after Maria was shot, but he knew which wing he and Maria had been fighting in at the time.

Shadow warped into the living quarters, and raced down the hallways like a maniac. He was shocked to see as he ran past, absolutely nothing. No soldiers' bodies, no dead Chaos buds, no bullet holes, it was as if everything had vanished without a trace. Now he understood. That day on the ARK, when he followed Maria, he could not defeat all of the clones. The dead bodies were all ingested by the remnants, leaving no trace. But what about that one person? Shadow raced on, looking for the spot that one person had been found in. Of course! Why could he not see it before!

His combat with the Chaos clones had led him to the center of the ARK, the very central chamber with an escape pod in the middle. The soldier had been found in the hallway of the Living Quarters leading up to the central chamber. And this is where he had to go. It wasn't long now… he_ had_ to make it. Shadow sprinted faster, the walls speeding by as a blur. Had to go faster… He could barely even see the patterns of the walls now, his hover shoes spurring him on. Shadow could see it now, the last turn that would lead him to the fatal corridor. With a great push, he emerged into the corridor at breakneck speed…

Just in time to see the last remaining squadron of GUN soldiers fire their guns. He was too late, and he just stood there in shock. All this time, all of this effort in going to the past… Nothing could be changed after all. In the end, he didn't make a difference anyway.

"Sayonara… Shadow the Hedgehog…" He heard Maria say faintly at the other end of the tunnel, and he could barely see past the soldiers, barely watch himself be blasted down to Earth. Shadow had failed. And he couldn't take it anymore. Rage flooded his heart and mind, rage like he had never felt before. Shadow's vision tunneled, his mind focused on the soldiers who were even now advancing on the prone form of Maria…

Shadow crossed the distance between him and the soldiers, a distance that would take human runners several minutes to cross, within a second. The first soldier he hit from behind with a Chaos Spear that would have decapitated an elephant from a hundred meters that barely kept the soldier's body intact as he hurtled across the floor like a rag doll. The other two soldiers were not so fortunate… Shadow had blasted the middle soldier with the spear, and he had appeared between the other two almost before the first soldier had even been hit. The next millisecond, the other soldiers were being held by the neck up in the air, gasping in surprise and from lack of oxygen. Secrecy no longer mattered to Shadow. He could do whatever he pleased now, it didn't matter anymore.

"_**CHAOS BLAST!!!**_" Shadow roared with a voice that would make the most hardened battle veteran quail and quake with terror. The bodies of the soldiers were incinerated in a burst of dark red light that could be _felt_ before it could be _seen_. And just like that, in a matter of a second, it was over. Shadow's rage vented out onto the final squadron of GUN soldiers. Only one remained… Shadow realized, it matched the GUN report exactly. An explosion from behind, his spear. Only that body was found, because the clones were no longer alive to eat it. The other two soldiers were gone from Shadow's blast. The pieces all fitted into place.

Shadow vaguely realized that he had incinerated his cloak, revealing his form to anyone who happened to be watching. Of which, at this point, there was only one. Shadow fixed his gaze upon the wounded Maria, who stared back in shock and awe as she fought through the delirium of pain to see the truth that could not possibly be. Shadow wasted no time in walking over there, ignoring the Chaos Emeralds for now.

"… Shadow?" The dying girl said, gasping the words out faintly from behind a mask of pain. Shadow had knelt in front of her, studying her prone form. She had propped her back against the glass tube that had insulated the interior from the blast of the escape pod ejection. A pool of blood had already begun to form under her body. Her left arm was draped over her wound, trying in vain to stop the pain. Shakes racked her body, but she kept her composure steady. Shadow was nearly in tears at this point, something no living being had ever seen to date.

"Yeah… It's me… I guess this is one more thing for me to be sorry for…" Shadow fought past the tears to say. He knew that these were probably the last seconds he would ever have with her… and he couldn't take the pain… It felt like his heart, the heart no one knew he had, was being torn out again, being thrown on the floor, and being shot by a million bullets fired from every GUN soldier he could visualize in his head. Which was a lot, considering the haunting visions of soldiers he had killed he had been seeing throughout his dreams lately. Maria winced, another wave of pain washing over her.

"… Never mind how you got here… I'm just glad I could talk to you… one… last… time…" Maria sighed, before falling into unconsciousness. Her body went limp, her head drooping to the side. It was over, there was nothing he could do now. In a matter of minutes, no, _seconds_, she would be dead. And he would probably die of heartbreak before it happened too. Such was the nature of tragedies…

_No!_ His brain snapped out of his grief. _This is not the end! There may be nothing _I_ can do… But _I'm _not the only person who can help!_ Shadow's mind exclaimed, nearly snapping the nearly forgotten device in half as he snatched it out from within his robes. In an instant, he had set his destination. Shadow wrapped his arms around Maria bridal style, right arm under her legs, and another supporting her back and neck. There was no time to waste: an ironic statement. There was all the time in the world.

"Chaos Control!"

Fifty years, to be precise.


	9. Chapter 8

"Now hold up there a sec, you two…" Rouge paused, looking from one to the other with one eyebrow raised. She had just been given information that would have been considered classified to every top secret organization known on Earth. Hell, even _knowing_ this stuff existed probably put all three of them on the hit lists of the top assassination organizations in the world. Back to the conversation at hand though, the assassinations could wait.

"You're telling me… That Shadow spent two months in Eggman's lair, stole new and unknown technology, _took it to the past_, and didn't tell _anyone_ what he was doing? Am I getting this right?" She asked, just to make sure there was nothing to clarify… Because if GUN got wind of _any_ of this, Shadow could kiss his head goodbye. GUN wouldn't mess around with lethal injection or electrocution; they knew Shadow would survive such petty wounds. So they had settled early on with the guillotine… Rouge had gotten the memo. Everyone had gotten it… except Shadow. In front of her, Sonic and Tails began to nod.

"Yeah… You saw him; he actually _complimented _me back there too! Something _had_ to be up… I don't even know why he's doing it, to be honest." Tails said, shifting from one foot to the other uncomfortably. Everyone did that when they talked about Shadow behind his back, for no one could be sure whether he was listening somewhere with his Chaos Control.

"Well this is just _great_. GUN is coming for Shadow, Shadow's gone, and we don't know where he went. And to make it worse, _they knew he was here_." Rouge began to pace, putting her arms behind her back and trying her best not to trip on the random inventions strewn about on Tails' floor. Of course Shadow would choose _that_ exact moment to show his cards. As she continued to lament their bad fortune, she was suddenly stopped by a stray miracle. A blinding blast of emerald light filled the room for but a second, which was rapidly replaced with the form of Shadow. No, Rouge could see, not just Shadow… He was holding someone else up too… Rouge could see that the girl was bleeding; his hands were covered in blood. Rouge was about to let out a torrent of questions in raised tones, such as "what the fuck do you think you were doing," but the lifeless girl in his arms cut her off better than any look or gesture from Shadow ever could. When he spoke, he spoke with a quiet urgency, not commanding, not arrogant, almost… vulnerable. Pleading, if anyone could ever say that about Shadow.

"Tails… I need your help… Please. Can you heal her?" Rouge couldn't believe her ears. For one, he was calling Tails by his name, instead of fox boy. For another, he said _please_… No one alive today had heard him say please until this day. Tails was the first to break out of the wave of shock that hit them all.

"…Y-yeah. Med center's in the back. T-t-try not to move her too much, okay?" The kitsune advised, whirling his tails to give him a burst of speed. Shadow merely warped over to where Tails had erected a small operating table in his spare time. It was conspicuously clean compared to the rest of his shop, probably because it was meant to be sterile. Tails closed the blinds, closing off the improvised surgery room. They couldn't even hear through the newly erected wall either, probably due to a soundproof device. Sonic was the _second_ one to break out of shock.

"Holy shit… When he said he was going to shoot someone, I didn't think he actually _meant_ it!" He choked out, obviously making far too light of the situation. Rouge was _happy_ to fix his mistake… A boot to the head ought to have done it, and it did. Sonic crashed to the floor noisily, even more dazed than before. Rouge was about to blow a gasket with fury.

"You _idiot_! Do you know who that was? _Think!_ For one second of your life, Sonic, _think_! Who is the one person Shadow is closest to? The person he would do anything for? The one person Shadow would even travel back through time itself to see again?!" Rouge prodded, and Sonic slowly yet surely realized the obvious. Tails had already guessed, and Rouge had known Shadow long enough to notice instantly who was in his arms.

"It can't be…" Sonic muttered on the floor, through the delirium of pain. Rouge crossed her arms in affirmation.

"It _is_. Maria Robotnik, of the Space Colony ARK."

Meanwhile, back in surgery, Tails was displaying his genius yet again. Somehow, he had already checked Maria's blood type, set up a transfusion, and had hundreds of scanners centered on her wound before the blood had even begun to seep out onto the table. Shadow merely stood watch over the procedure, not only to make sure the kitsune didn't screw up, but because he couldn't bear to leave her there.

Tails worked with a precision that was both uncanny and mesmerizing. He had his virtual keyboard fully opened in front of him, and his fingers were seen as little more than a blur as he typed out hundreds of thousands of commands to his tools. Above the table, several surgical machines lowered their arms and began to work. They must have been powered with Chaos energy, Shadow reasoned, because there were no power cords, and the tips of the machines were glowing strangely.

After a long half an hour that seemed to stretch out _ad infinitum_, Tails finished up the complex surgery, finally closing the wound with a burst of Chaos energy. The worn out kitsune's hands were already visibly cramping up, and yet he was still typing. The sensors were performing multiple checks on Maria's still comatose body, and the machines still had to be raised back into the neutral position. Shadow sensed that the hard part was over, so he walked up behind the kitsune.

"Is she alright?" He asked, barely able to breathe. He tried to console himself, surely Tails was the greatest surgeon ever. Surely he couldn't fail in this task…

"I did everything I could, Shadow…" The kitsune said. Shadow's heart stopped. His worst fears had been realized. "So she's alive and healthy now. The scanners are making sure she doesn't have any more injuries, and ensuring that her immune system is up to date. A cocktail of certain vaccines will be given anyway just in case. Is that satisfactory?" Tails flipped close his keyboard and turned to face a sighing Shadow, whose heart had just now begun to beat again. The kitsune had expected him to be foaming at the mouth for tricking him, but in the end Shadow was merely relieved. If anything did, this confirmed Tails' suspicions… Something had changed Shadow in the past. When he thought Shadow wasn't looking, he stole a quick glance at the unconscious girl he had just saved, Maria.

Of course he knew it was her. How couldn't he? He had already hacked into the GUN records a million times, searching for _anything_ about her. Shadow had never stopped talking about her, even through his amnesia. It was always "Maria" this, and "Maria" that. After dozens of sleepless nights and Red Bulls, he had only found a picture and a description… a dead end for Shadow's memory. But something had apparently stuck with him… He had gone to the past, and come out changed. For the better? That remained to be seen. Turning back in case Shadow was watching him, he found that the brooding hedgehog had already gone. Tails shook his head, creeped out by his silent exit. With the press of a button on the side of the operating table, Tails was able to make it rise and float over to a bed so his patient could rest. Of course, he had to slip something over her bloody clothes, so as not to stain the bed. The kitsune set her down reverently upon the soft sheets, not taking any chances. If Shadow found out he had done something to harm her, even accidentally, he could expect double in return.

Rouge waited outside the improvised surgery room, waiting to hear from someone. It was as if they were waiting for news of a long lost friend, who had recently gotten into trouble. Rouge could imagine herself in a similar situation, waiting for news of someone who had gone off to war. Wars happened often with Eggman around. You never knew when he would show up out of the blue, wielding an army of mindless drones.

She took a glance at Sonic, who had sat down and waited as well following his nasty spill onto the floor. Rouge took note of her handiwork, which had begun to form in the shape of a nasty blue and black welt that contrasted sorely with the hedgehog's fur. Normally she would grin wickedly at his pain, but these were not normal circumstances. A person's life was at stake, and that was nothing to joke about.

Rouge was about to fall asleep leaning against one of the walls when the blinds opened for a second. Shadow walked out, taking each step slowly and deliberately. The blinds closed automatically behind him, silent as a whisper. The look on his face told her that now was not the time to ask questions. If he was in a good mood, he would have at _least_ started to make fun of Sonic, adding insult to injury, and possibly another injury to add to his insult. But the midnight black hedgehog paid no heed to the wounded Sonic. He merely walked across the room and out the door. Rouge waited for a full minute before following. It was going to be a dirty job, but _someone_ had to do it.

She found him outside, of course. Where else would he be? Shadow was standing on the edge of the cliff next to Tails' workshop, looking out over the ocean. He was as silent as the calm water of the pond behind them, as solemn as he had ever been. Rouge was hesitant to approach, but there was no choice but to press onward. Step by step, she waited for a sign, a gesture, a word, _some_ reaction from the hedgehog, but he just stood there like a sentinel as she approached. Finally, she stopped, as she was now standing right next to him. They stayed silent like that for a while, while Rouge worked up the courage to ask the dreaded question.

"Is she…?" Rouge couldn't finish. She felt that if she finished the sentence she would jinx the answer, and she wasn't going to take any chances. Thankfully, Shadow nodded in affirmation. Inside, Rouge's heartbeat calmed. So Maria was alive… heh. Rouge should have known that Tails would be able to fix her up. Tails had nearly _invented_ the GUN practice of surgery, there was no _way_ he could have failed in the first place. It was almost silly for her to have doubted him, but now the conversation had to turn from good news… to bad news. Yet again her voice came out halting and uncertain as she spoke to her silent companion.

"Shadow… GUN is on its way. I tried to warn you, but… you left before I got here." She wanted to strangle herself. This was no time for GUN to interrupt, and they had no business coming here while Maria was healing. Shadow remained as silent as ever. She waited for a full minute, just watching the ocean, but there was no response. Finally, she was about to ask if he was even listening when he found it in him to ask in an almost _resigned_ voice:

"How long?" Rouge had not expected that. Sure, it had to come up eventually, but she would have expected an arrogant retort, an egotistical boast about how he wasn't afraid, or how they would have gotten here sooner if that lazy ass commander wasn't so slow on his feet. She had expected him to swear, and make ready for a daring escape, or to dash off on some strange impulse. Rouge had expected him to strangle the messenger for being the bearer of bad news. _Anything_ but this right now. She was so shocked; she took a second or two to gather her wits.

"They had sent the order about an hour ago… they should be close by. You could still escape, but with Maria… They know you were here. They'd search the house. You can't move her, Shadow… We could-" Rouge was cut off by another comment from Shadow.

"No, don't. I know what I have to do…" His voice was low, bereft of its normal arrogance and sarcasm. "Take these." Shadow dropped the Chaos Emeralds onto the ground, causing Rouge's eyes to bulge out of their sockets. Next he dropped Eggman's machine, which had somehow been pocketed somewhere on Shadow's person. "I won't be needing them." Shadow turned around slowly, deliberately, like a man who knew his fate and was resigned to it. "If Maria asks… don't tell her about my past." And he began to walk off. Rouge just stood there, slack jawed, with the most valuable objects in the world at her feet. Then he was gone, off the plateau, off to do some noble, heroic act no doubt. Rouge ceremoniously picked up the emeralds and the device as if they were the figureheads of a new religion, and carried them back into the workshop. Just in case GUN searched it, Rouge took shelter in the secret tunnels below the shop, safe from prying eyes and ears. Tails had to hide Maria on his own.


	10. Chapter 9

Shadow walked through the rainforest of the Mystic Ruins, reflecting on his lot in life. Every turn in it, he had been a failure. He had failed to stop Maria from being shot in the past, he had mistakenly tried to destroy the Earth, (and even at that, he had failed miserably, he had woken up without even remembering her face.) He had killed all of those soldiers, all of those Black Arms aliens, and even at the end of his quest he had failed to remember his past. And even right now, he had failed yet again to stop Maria from being shot, with his last chance of redemption.

But now it was time to do something right for a change, and this was the beginning of it. Suddenly, the whirring of helicopter blades reached his ears, and within seconds, searchlights cut through the canopy of trees. Soldiers popped out of every orifice the wood offered to conceal them; dropping out of the branches, leaping from behind trunks, out of holes, even the _air _seemed to conceal the multitudes. Laser sights played across his chest, turning his white crest into a mangled polka-dotted bull's eye. Sirens wailed in the background, barely audible over the roar of helicopters above.

The familiar cliché came with predictable swiftness. Put your hands in the air, bla-bla-bla, as if he hadn't heard it a million times already. He had half expected a "culturally diverse" soldier to jump out and shout "freeze, sucka'!" just to relieve the monotony, but no; it was a standard arrest. Shadow reached into the dense pockets of his fur and brought out a handgun. Instantly, his hand was alight with laser scopes. "Put the weapon down, or we _will_ shoot!" and all of that jazz. Shadow ignored them again, bringing it out in front of him. His finger was off the trigger of course, but not many of the soldiers could see that, and those that could already knew that that could change in a blink of an eye. But with a flick of his hand, Shadow was suddenly holding the barrel of the gun, causing more than a few members to indulge in their trigger-happiness with shock. Bullets whizzed past his face, but his gaze remained steady regardless. Shadow dropped the gun ceremoniously, almost as if it were a required part of the ritual, a formality that had to be followed before the ceremony could begin. The soldiers took it as a sign of cooperation, and immediately rushed in to cuff him and confiscate the hoard of weapons that he had "neglected" to drop as well.

Boy, _that_ trial lasted long… The first hour of it was spent removing and cataloguing each and every one of Shadow's guns. He could have easily saved them the time by listing them all by category and name (Bessie, Tommy, Willie, Pete, Frankie, etc,) but he liked to make the soldiers suffer. Hence, the cataloguing. Shadow merely sat back in his supposedly uncomfortable chair and watched the soldiers organize his stash. Nine hundred and eighty seven guns and three collections of assorted types of knives that would make a butcher cry in joy to even look at them.

Finally, when the actual trial got underway, the judge spent half an hour reading off his lists of crimes. Well, _there's_ some good news right there. Five hundred counts of being _drunk in public_, three thousand and eighty two counts of vandalism, twenty seven counts of obstruction of justice (heh, if only they knew. There's really fifty,) twelve counts of criminal espionage, and one count of breach of contract. And then they got to the plea. Shadow didn't bother to go through the lengthy procedure of playing innocent (I know it's hard to believe,) so he decided to get it over with.

"I plead guilty, '_your honor_.'" Shocked gasps went around the room, and not only because of the insolent tone with which he used to address the judge. Everyone present had half expected him to plead innocent, _just_ to torture them. The prosecution lawyers had all of their stuff categorized and alphabetized, ready to go for the trial as well. Of course, no one complained, but… From there, things went rather quickly. His sentence was delivered quickly and without debate or deliberation. The jury was told to go out into the other room, and it was if they were filing through one door and out through the next to deliver their unanimous sentence.

Guilty as charged.

The execution date was set for the next day, and Shadow was to be thrown in a holding cell while the guillotine was erected in the middle of Westopolis. Oh, the _guillotine_! The GUN commander made a spectacle over the whole thing! Sure, execution had commonly been done through lethal injection, or even the electrical chair! But Shadow was special. Electricity wouldn't kill him quickly. The injection would be harmless! So, hence the _guillotine_. Shadow rolled his eyes, the theatrics too idiotic for him to bear. Finally, it was over, and he could lounge about in his cell for the next few hours. Anything was better than having to listen to the Commander go _on_ and _on_ about the _GUILLOTINE_.

After the press release was sent out, the top news in the entire globe rang with the proclamation. _Shadow the Hedgehog was sentenced to death_. Film crews rushed to the arranged site, hoping to score big with viewers on this historic event. One thing was for certain: _no one_ would miss this for the world.

Shadow walked down the stone hallway set beneath the prison of Westopolis. The prison had been originally an old fashioned style, full of dungeons and torture chambers, but when the Black Arms invasion destroyed everything they decided to rebuild it modern. Of course, the extensive catacombs beneath the rubble had remained even _after_ the aliens destroyed the building itself. It was down these corridors that Shadow was led. A GUN trooper was on either side of him, holding weapons at the ready. Of course both knew that Shadow could kill them, steal their ID's, get out of there, and be drinking marguerites on the beach before anyone knew or cared that they were gone, but they felt a false sense of security with their weapons close to hand. Shadow was un-cuffed, most likely because they were useless on a hedgehog of Shadow's caliber.

They reached the cell, a drab, dreary, and dismal sort of dungeon, (what's with all the D words?) with sparse furnishing. Only chains connected to the wall leading down to old fashioned collars to restrain the victims adorned this particular room. In lieu of having Shadow destroy the antiques, they just locked him in and left. If Shadow went psycho, they wanted to be sure they were the _last_ to know about it.

And so now Shadow was alone in his cell, awaiting his execution. Some say that the agony leading up to death is worse punishment than death itself, while some view it as a peaceful experience, coming to terms with death. Shadow just viewed it as a nuisance. If they were going to execute someone, why wait? They should have taken out a gun and shot him or something, in his mind. Sighing, he leaned back against the wall, thinking that if he was going to die, he might as well die well rested.

And of course, Fate was being an asshole that day, and decided that Shadow wasn't _going_ to go to sleep. The darkness of his cell was broken as Shadow dozed off by a dim emerald aura emanating from the far stone wall.

Silver emerged silently from the inter-dimensional portal, and would have startled Shadow out of his mind had he not, of course, been dozing off at the time. Now, any _sensible_ person would have been courteous enough to leave exactly the way he came as quietly as possible when confronted with a snoozing Shadow. This, however, was not the case with Silver.

"Hello… Shadow…" Shadow instantly jolted awake, jolted into alertness by the voice of his old time acquaintance and part-time rival. The last time he had seen Silver, they had been fighting Solaris. After that… the time warp experience had blotted out all memory. Regardless, it was a rare surprise to see him again. And he _could_, somehow. The hedgehog's runic symbols that adorned his body glowed with an unearthly light, which allowed Shadow to see past the darkness he was so accustomed to.

"Silver. Having fun with time again?" he asked uninterestedly, leaning back against the wall. It's not that he didn't approve of Silver's time traveling, so long as it didn't affect him, but he really just didn't care at this point. The quicker the conversation went along, the quicker Shadow could go back to sleep.

"I could say the same to you. These don't look like the most… _comfortable_… arrangements." Silver gestured at the chains and collars, not amused by the torture devices. "By the way, I saw what you did there." He remarked, walking over and leaning against the cold stone wall. Something seemed important in that sentence, which should have really stood out to Shadow. But as he was, he just didn't feel like digging it out. His heart really wasn't in it, providing his was still there…

"Yeah… What of it?" he commented, shrugging it off. Since when had it become Silver's business to comment on what he did? Silver didn't seem to catch the hint, and kept talking.

"Nothing… just saying. Say, why don't I help you bust outta here?" Silver said as he pointed at the bars, which instantly looked as if they were _begging_ to be ripped open. However, the psychokinetic hedgehog's gesture of good faith went by unnoticed by Shadow. He merely shrugged and looked to the side.

"Because I don't want to. It doesn't matter if they kill me anyway. It won't change a thing." He shrugged, looking away. Silver's mouth hung agape, watching in disbelief.

"Let me get this straight… You went to the past, saved Maria, and now you're going to LET YOURSELF DIE?!?!" Silver half shouted, only remembering in the last half second that echoes travel far in stone prison cells. Shadow remained as uninterested as ever.

"Like I said… it doesn't matter. I have my reasons, but… you wouldn't _understand_ my pain." Shadow defended himself, trying to seem indifferent and uncaring. In truth, the hedgehog's argument made a lot of sense, but yet it only served to reaffirm his convictions. Silver, however, had had enough of Shadow's uncaring arrogance now. The runic symbols on his body began to glow, his long spikes rising slightly into the air as he spoke.

"_I _wouldn't understand? _Me?_ Back up for a second." Silver frowned in anger, his eyebrows lowering menacingly. Shadow felt himself rising off of the ground, a pressure on his chest slamming him into the wall painfully. Invisible fingers tightened around his neck, _juuuust_ painfully enough to make him pay _full _attention.

"What you don't _get_…" Silver began in anger, his body surrounded by a pulsing aura. "…is that I may be the _only one_ who can understand your pain, Shadow." Silver lessened the pressure slightly as he began to open his _own_ heart. "Right before we fought Solaris… I had just gone back to the future. And there he was; the fiery demon in all of its glory. I fought it, fought the Flames of Disaster, and I won. But when it came time to seal the demon within myself, my world fell apart. The seal wouldn't accept me as its tool, there was nothing I could do… I couldn't finish the job. And Blaze, my best friend, and the girl who had been with me for all of my _life_, stepped in and took my place before I could take two steps to stop her. Blaze… She took the emeralds and sealed Iblis away within herself, and then she asked me to send her into another dimension… To hide her away so that Iblis could never again escape, but… I couldn't do it… She took it upon herself to seal herself away, without me…" Silver paused, leaving Shadow in awe. No one had witnessed the breakdown of Silver the Hedgehog ever before…

"…and I couldn't stop her. I just stood there and _watched_, as she dropped the emeralds and faded away. The one thing that still haunts my dreams, Shadow, was that I never got to tell her how much she _really_ meant to me… And without her, my world is gone. So _**don't you**__**dare**_ tell me that I don't know your pain!" Silver stopped again, looking Shadow dead in the eye as his voice rose again. The tension in the room was palpable, as Silver waited for a sign from the dark and brooding hedgehog. But Shadow remained as silent and unresponsive as ever as he contemplated Silver's story. As the minutes dragged on, Silver finally dropped him and let him catch his breath. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?" the glowing hedgehog asked. Shadow resisted the temptation to look away again.

"Fine. You want to know what I'm doing, I'll tell you. I don't _deserve_ to be here. I don't deserve to _live_. Everything I do, I fail. Because I was at the ARK, the doctor's work was destroyed. I was right next to Maria, and I couldn't stop her from being shot. I returned to the ARK to get revenge, and I _still_ couldn't do that simple task. And I only just found out that I was meant both to _stop_ Black Arms _and_ to help him, and I couldn't even do either of those right! In the end, everything was destroyed anyway! And now, I've failed _yet again_ to save Maria from being shot. I'm a failure… I'm worthless." Shadow paused for breath, taking a moment to glance at Silver's reaction. He was staring back, impassive as a statue. Finally, the silver hedgehog spoke.

"Do you do it because _you_ think you are worthless… or because you think _Maria_ thinks you are worthless?" Silver managed to hit it dead on, although Shadow didn't know it himself yet. He merely sat back down and looked away, despair etched across his features. Silver couldn't believe his eyes.

"Shadow, you don't really think that, do you? She's your friend, there's no way she'd think anything different of you." Silver tried to console him, but there was more to it than that in Shadow's mind. Shadow raised his right hand into the air, out for Silver to see… His right hand… covered in blood.

"It's _her_ blood, Silver… Her blood is on my hands… I can't take it. It's not just everyone I've killed anymore, the soldiers I killed, and the Black Arms… Now it's Maria's… I can't face her anymore, Silver… Not with what I've done…" Shadow looked away again, a silent statue once more. Silver waited for him to speak again, but he was silent. Emotion rendered him mute, robbing speech from his mouth.

"… You don't believe that… do you, Shadow?" Silver tried in vain, but he received no response from the dark hedgehog. The seconds dragged into minutes, with silence ruling over all. Finally, Silver seemed to think of something. As he spoke, even the stones of the walls seemed to pay attention…

"_Should any free soul come across that place,_

_In all the countless centuries left to be,_

_May all of our voices whisper to you,_

_From the ageless stone._

_Go tell the Spartans passerby,_

_That here… By Spartan law…_

_We lie."_

Shadow felt strange as the poem ended… as if it fit the mood perfectly. Like the words themselves were keys to something much deeper…

"When the Spartan tribe of echidnas was faced by the onslaught of Persian hare attack, they stood their ground, and fought them off like warriors. They did not care for the enemies they defeated, for they were the enemy, deserving of no pity. But when the tide of battle turned, and the Persian hares attacked from ahead and behind, not one echidna fled in fear. Not one." Silver paused, seeing the effect on Shadow. He was listening, Silver could tell, but he wasn't going to speak.

"And as the Persians came and overran them, each Spartan fought to the death. Each Spartan knew that they would die there, that day. And they faced it like true warriors. They did not remain, by Spartan law. Nor did they remain to try one last time to defeat the emperor. No. They remained… because they knew that their name would live on. They knew that they died for a_ reason_. Why do _you_ die, Shadow? Think about it." And with that, Silver disappeared, back into the darkness. And Shadow was alone with his thoughts once again.

They say a hedgehog's worst enemy is themselves. Tonight, Shadow remembers why.


	11. Chapter 10

Maria woke up confused and disoriented: two problems that could easily be explained with logic. Confused? Well, she wasn't even supposed to be living right now, let alone feeling perfectly healthy. Sure, a small amount of pain in her chest, but that was nothing compared to what she had been feeling what had seemed only seconds ago. Disoriented? Well, what could you expect out of someone who had just taken a bullet one second and woken up perfectly fine the next.

Opening her eyes proved only to _add_ to her confusion. She found herself in a bed she had never seen before, and never felt before in her life. It felt so soft… so comfortable… No! She had to stay awake, figure out where she was… but everything was so different! The walls weren't all metallic, and the room had a ceiling that was much higher than she was used to. Wait… on the ground there… now there was something she was more accustomed to! Metal, wires, machinery! She began to relax a little, after finding something she recognized in a strange world where nothing was the same…

"Well I never! Looks like Tails makes miracles… You're already awake! How are you feeling?" Maria whipped her head around to find a woman leaning against the wall. She looked… Like a bat. Her fur was white, and she wore white boots and white gloves. Her boots had a pink heart at their toe, and she wore a pink and black shirt that ended right below her arms. The woman's wings were black, but they looked strong and powerful, as if she could fly great distances. Her voice was silky smooth, rich with a hidden agenda behind every syllable. Maria shrank back away from her, until her back was almost completely flush against the material her bed was made out of. The woman seemed to notice her fear, and immediately worked to calm her down.

"Hey now, don't worry. You're safe here. My name's Rouge… Rouge the Bat, at your service." She explained, and Maria calmed down slightly. There was no immediate danger, and maybe she could find out where she was now. And there was something at the back of her mind too that was bugging her… it was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't quite remember it. Shrugging, she decided to figure out where she was first.

"Where… am I?" She asked tentatively, curious yet afraid at the same time of the answer. Rouge seemed to sense her fear, although Maria had no clue how she could tell, and walked over to sit next to her on the bed. She seemed to think for a second before she answered, for some reason Maria could not seem to contemplate.

"Well… I suppose this'll be a shock to you but… You're currently in the workshop of Miles "Tails" Prower, in the Mystic Ruins zone on planet Earth." Maria's mind raced as she heard the word. _Earth! So _that's_ where she was… Wait a second… That's what she had forgotten! Where was Shadow? Last time she saw him… he was right in front of her…_ She snapped herself out of her thoughts, and immediately asked the pressing question.

"Where's Shadow?" Rouge cringed upon hearing the name, which put Maria on edge. The answer couldn't be good if it took a while to deliver it. The batgirl was conflicted, it looked, almost as if she was deciding something that would most likely be illegal. She was about to break when a new character entered the scene. This one was a fox… which seemed to have two tails. His fur was a golden yellow, and white patches sprouted here and there, especially at the ends of his tails. He had three cowlicks that stuck out in front of his face, but they didn't look to impede his sight much. Maria was hoping for good news before he started to talk, and word by word destroy her hopes.

"No, Rouge. Remember what you told me. She doesn't have to know." The fox's voice immediately identified him as merely a child, no older than twelve. He had a wrist bracelet that seemed to be much more as a digital keyboard materialized out of it. With some deft keystrokes, Tails was able to conjure a chair to sit on that seemed to fall right out of the ceiling. Maria assumed that this was Miles, the owner of the shop she was in. It seemed unfair to her that they were allowed to keep her in the dark, so she pestered him.

"Please! I need to know… I need to know if he's alright!" Maria half shouted, getting desperate for an answer. Tails and Rouge exchanged looks. They seemed to say "should we?" or "she deserves to know"… of course, through looks they could have just as easily been saying "this chair is uncomfortable" or "what's for dinner?" Finally, after the silence had dragged on for a few minutes, and Maria had almost created whiplash for herself by looking back and forth so quickly, Tails finally broke the ice.

"She deserves to know the truth… Should you, or should I?" They spend a few more comical seconds debating who had more right to tell her what was going on. On the one hand, it seemed, Tails was much smarter and could probably tell it better. On the other hand, Rouge was much closer to Shadow, and had more right to talk about him than Tails did. The debate didn't last long, after Rouge finally sucked it up and screamed that she'd "tell the damn story, you wussy foxboy". Rouge began a few seconds later.

"Where should I begin…? Oh, that's an easy one. If the records are correct… it has been fifty years since the ARK was shut down… since the day you were shot." Maria listened intently. _Fifty years! What's been happening? What _did_ happen? How did Shadow save me?_ Rouge continued after a pause.

"I should start at the beginning… Shadow has told us not to tell you this, but due to the circumstances…" Rouge glanced at Tails before continuing. "…we decided that it wasn't the best idea to keep secrets." Maria was exploding with curiosity. She waited on bated breath for the story to begin.

"It all began, oh; it couldn't have been more than half a year ago. The notorious Doctor Eggman broke into a high security vault in a well concealed location, and removed from it a specimen classified as "highly dangerous" by the organization guarding it. This was Project Shadow, genetically engineered by Gerald Robotnik of the Space Colony ARK… the same one you knew." Rouge paused to let it sink in.

"Shadow immediately began to collect the Chaos Emeralds after his release. No one knew what the duo was up to; some even thought Shadow was Sonic for a time. Sonic is a friend of ours, and has been a rival of Shadow's ever since those times. I had infiltrated Eggman's ranks at the time, and was able to meet Shadow firsthand… His personality was frightening. He was always arrogant, always sure of himself, always set on his one goal… and he wouldn't let _anything_ stand in his way." Rouge continued.

"It wasn't long before everyone learned of their plan. They were going to use the Chaos Emeralds to power the Eclipse Cannon on the ARK… and destroy Earth." Maria gasped audibly, her mind reeling. _There was no way! There had to be some mistake… Shadow wouldn't do that! Not the Shadow she knew…_

"It's true." The words stabbed into her like an icy dagger. "Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails all went to the ARK to fight against Shadow, Eggman and I… In the end, the real threat came from neither Shadow _nor_ Eggman. Gerald apparently had one final command set into the Space Colony ARK… it was set to crash into Earth. FinalHazard, another project by Gerald, appeared on the Eclipse Cannon just after the sequence began." Rouge looked at the ceiling as she remembered those awful moments… Maria could see, flashing in the forefront of Rouge's vision, those terrible scenes replayed in vivid clarity.

"Sonic and Shadow banded together, and used the power of the Chaos Emeralds to defeat the creature, but… After the fight, Shadow's super state wore off… he was unable to make it back to the ARK. Shadow fell to Planet Earth below, and there was nothing anyone could do to save him." Rouge's eyes teared up as she remembered those awful memories. But of course, Maria knew that he had survived in the end. How else would events have happened? Rouge lowered her head and closed her eyes as she continued. The memories were probably painful.

"Life went on. Later, I was snooping around Eggman's HQ again when I stumbled upon a hidden chamber. Within it… lay Shadow. He was alive, after all of this time… like herpes, Shadow just kept coming back… again, and again, and again." Rouge lowered her head and closed her eyes as she continued. The memories were probably painful, but obviously no new news to her. "But his memory was gone, to our surprise. We decided to track down what we thought was Eggman together… but after we defeated Metal Sonic who was pretending to be the doctor, we were only faced with a room filled with Shadow clones."

"Eggman couldn't have made them without the real Shadow… Who knew, perhaps the Shadow we had found was just another clone? So we decided to search for the real Shadow together. Our dark companion grew a case of depression around him then… he thought he was an enemy to humanity, and eventually told us to destroy him, but we couldn't. We simply couldn't do it to him." A tear fell from her eye, but she made no move to wipe it away.

"Then came the darkest chapter of our tale… The part Shadow wishes could be buried and forgotten… the part he told us never to speak to you about. An alien invasion came to Earth, led by the malevolent commander of an alien species. He gave his name as Black Doom. Tantalizing Shadow with offers to reveal to him his past, he led the hedgehog on a murderous rampage across towns, country sides; to everywhere on Earth there came death and destruction. It was truly pure anarchy in the world, Chaos in its most basic form. But in the end, Shadow defeated Black Doom aboard his own dark vessel, and Eggman revealed that he was indeed the real Shadow after all." Rouge paused in her tale… Maria was close to tears at this point. _This wasn't the Shadow that she knew… This wasn't the Shadow that had saved her… what changed?_

"After the dust settled, GUN was harsh on Shadow's sentence. He was forced to join the organization, as repentance for his sins. We became partners, war buddies, comrades in arms… we had made a great team, until recently. Shadow was always quiet, distancing himself from the rest of us… and not two months ago he disappeared, only showing up _yesterday _to save Tails' and Sonic's hides from Eggman's sinister plots… again…" Rouge rolled her eyes.

"We had always wondered Shadow's motives, but he was always an enigma to us. After scaring me half to death, he returned… and immediately asked Tails to examine something. Out of the smoldering wreckage of Eggman's base came an unexpected prize... I'll let Tails take it from here; he knows more about it than I do at this point…" Rouge stepped back to lean against a wall. Maria focused her attentions on the short fox, who now began to speak.

"Alright. Shadow brought to me one of Eggman's newest creations to examine. It was an inter-temporal homing beacon, if you can understand any of that…" Maria nodded, having heard most of this technical jargon before. She had a vague idea that it had something to do with time or place… Tails looked to be delighted to find someone whom with he didn't have to explain what he said.

"Perfect! Alright, so after a long night's work, I gave Shadow the results. And, well…" Tails paused, scratching the back of his head. "He used the Chaos Control to open a gate to the past… and you probably know more about what happened _there_ than we do. It's anyone's guess right now. So… that's pretty much it. You came back with a pretty bad bullet wound to the chest, but thanks to my special surgical units charged with Chaos energy, I was able to fix you up." Tails looked pretty proud of himself, and Maria wanted nothing more than to thank him again for all of his help… But there were still the nagging questions at the back of her mind, the ones that were driving her crazy…

"Um… Thank you, for doing all of this for me…" Both of her newfound companions nodded at this. "But it doesn't make sense! The Shadow I knew would never have done all of those things! Shadow was kind to me… he was my friend… Sure, he was pretty quiet mostly, but he would never do those horrible things! There _has_ to be some mistake! There's-" Maria was stopped as Tails pulled out a remote control from his pocket. The look on his face had the power to silence the entire room immediately. It was a face filled with pain… this wasn't going to be easy for him, whatever it was. Even his voice was choked with emotion as he spoke again.

"I know, Maria. I know you don't believe us… That's why Shadow didn't want us to tell you, I think… He didn't want you to know… _this._" Tails cringed as he pressed the play button in the center of the remote. A television screen lowered from the ceiling, some new technology that Maria hadn't seen before. It looked to be quite complicated, and she wouldn't have been able to describe it even if she could have a while to look at it… The news report that quickly occupied her attention completely took her breath away as she watched.

"_We're reporting to you live, from the center of Westopolis, in the middle of a crisis that of which this city has never seen before. Creatures from deep space have descended onto our once-fair city and are in the process of ravaging it to its core. Commander of the Guardian Units of Nations has identified one Shadow the Hedgehog to be a key player in these developments, and we can see plainly the destruction that has been wreaked in his wake."_

_  
The woman on the screen was standing in front of the wreckage of a burning building, still blazing with great intensity. Helicopters could be seen buzzing overhead, and soldiers were running around everywhere. Both alien and human bodies alike littered the streets, and not just civilians. GUN soldiers were added to the mix… all shot with human bullets. The sky was an ominous black, dark stormclouds persistently remaining to add to the ensemble. The carnage was hard to look at, probably even harder to experience firsthand… The woman continued, placing her hand on her ear as she apparently received some new information._

"_We've just gotten confirmation that the notorious Shadow the Hedgehog was seen here earlier tonight, and did not spare any hostilities. Both alien and human soldiers alike fell by his hand this night, and he seems to have no bias as to whom he kills. Here we have footage of the hedgehog as he entered this scene not too long ago… Watch and remember, citizens… Shadow the Hedgehog is to be considered armed, and dangerous."_

_The live footage cut to a recorded scenario… A familiar face entered the scene, Shadow the Hedgehog… He was holding a fully automatic machine gun, probably pilfered from the body of a dead soldier. Both GUN and alien forces were battling each other here, trading gunfire and laser beams like they were hay pennies. As Shadow entered the scene, half of the GUN battalion immediately set their sights upon him and fired. They apparently had already been forewarned that he was dangerous. Rings fell off of the hedgehog's body like sweat drops, but it did not faze him in the slightest. In a wide arc with his weapon, he took out half of the soldiers shooting at him and a good third of the alien creatures to boot. All focus was on him now, but he was already gone. Shadow had dashed forward, landing a kick into the face of an alien, shooting his buddies down with a fantastic spin just as he landed._

_Shadow glowed red now, an evil aura spelling imminent doom for all who stood near to him. Without warning or hesitation, Shadow shouted the fatal words. Maria could barely make them out as a great shockwave tore through the scenery. The camera lens instantly broke, all video feed lost. Burning fire could be heard approaching just after that dreadful incantation…_

"_Chaos Blast!"_

_And it all went silent._

The screen rose back up into the ceiling, and Maria placed her head in her hands… It was too much for her. This was enough proof for her that the two weren't lying to her. Shadow had _really_ done those things… Shadow had killed all of those people. Shadow had made an enemy of all of humanity. Shadow did it all…

Had he really changed that much? Shadow had been so kind to her, Maria could remember… He had never made her angry, never hurt her intentionally… They had had so much fun as children… Was a few years time that much of a difference? She could barely hear as Rouge spoke again, and only responded when it was repeated a second time…

"Maria?"

"Yeah…?" She mumbled through the covers, which her head was now sunk into. Her mind was reeling after the shock of that video. She was unable to see or hear Tails' suspicious fall from his stool following a blunt object being tossed into his face by someone across the room, nor would she have understood the implications of the proverbial "boot to the head". Regardless, Rouge continued.

"… Don't look at Shadow any differently. I know for a fact that he had a good reason to do what he did… Shadow remains to this very day, somewhere deep down inside of him, the same person you knew… The same Shadow that saved you fifty years ago." Maria picked up her ears at this. Sure, it was probably false hope, for how could anyone justify the killing of so many innocents…? But she clung to it like the last strand of the fraying rope just before she fell into the depths of oblivion.

"And I know because… because there was _one_ thing that survived when Shadow's memory left him. One thing that kept him going, both before and after the amnesia. One thing that drove him to such lengths, such acts that seem so wrong… and yet he did them all… for you, Maria." Maria froze, her mind blanking in an instant.

"Shadow tried to destroy Earth as retribution for your death. In the end, he finally remembered the promise he made to you back then… ironically just before his fall to Earth and his subsequent amnesia. And even through _that_, your name remained on his lips. Over and over, he searched for his past, for the reason behind the haunting images of your death. It was the entire reason he listened to Black Doom, and fought to find his past. It was all… for _you_." Maria didn't know what to say… Her mouth hung open in shock, looking back and forth between the two again. A nod from Tails confirmed everything for her. She felt… happy, she realized. Sure, it came nowhere close to justifying all of those horrible things… She was still shivering to think of them. But through all the misery, all of the horror and confusion, it still warmed her heart to know that Shadow put her above all others… She took her head off of her hands and looked up with a look of contentment on her face.

That was when she noticed the shifty look in their eyes… There was something that she didn't know yet. Her mood faded. She could see it in their eyes, the way they shifted back and forth and often lingered down toward the floor. The way their heads drooped, how they couldn't look at her in the face anymore, it all spelled bad news.

"What _now_?" She asked in a matter-of-fact way, in a tone that dripped with weariness of the entire situation. The way they gulped after she spoke confirmed it for her. More news was on its way… But it came in a form that she did not expect… A new character entered the scene. A hedgehog… Was this Sonic?

"I'll tell her, guys. Sorry I'm late… But the update's on TV." His voice was confident, bordering on cockiness. He walked into the room as if it was his own, and in the first second after he did so, it _was_ his. His red shoes made soft thumps as he walked, his gloved hands moving in sync with his legs. His cobalt quills hung back behind his head, razor sharp like daggers. His emerald eyes betrayed kindness, behind the façade of solemnity displayed now.

With movements as quick as lightning, the cobalt speedster snatched the remote from Tails and activated the screen again. A similar program to that of which Maria had watched before displayed itself, with minor changes. The definition was better; the border around the picture was clearer and more complex. But this time, she didn't focus on the woman in the foreground… She couldn't see the scenery of Westopolis in all of its splendor. The masses of people were lost on her, the clear sky a blank slate.

For there, standing on the platform raised above all others… standing in front of a machine whose purposes were dreadfully obvious… surrounded by the soldiers so familiar to her… There stood Shadow the Hedgehog, chains adorning his wrists, and before him the guillotine, with a blade of grim purpose poised to strike.

Maria's heart ceased to beat in that moment.


	12. Chapter 11

The night passed all too quickly for the condemned. Hour for hour the time dragged on, as Shadow tried to live what seemed to be his last hours in peace, yet Silver's words stuck in his head like glue. Was he really a coward? Was he just running away from his past again? These questions tormented his mind, preventing sweet sleep from taking hold. However, as the sun began to rise in the east, Shadow was unaware that the clock was ticking ever closer to his doom. For in his prison, the light of the sun was hard to come by.

It came as a not unwelcome surprise to hear the soldiers' smooth rhythm as they marched down the hallway. They had come, and it would all be over soon. The light of a torch lit up the hallway outside his cell, and he could finally see past of the darkness that had swallowed him for most of the night. His new guards were disciplined and solemn for the day's events to come. Their rifles were held behind their arms, the tip of the barrel sticking above each soldier's shoulder. Their uniforms were crisp, their helmets untarnished by the grime of war. Not a wrinkle was visible on the garb of either soldier as they stood at attention, waiting for their prisoner.

Shadow saved them the effort of collecting him. In a manner that reeked of disinterestedness, he nonchalantly rose from the grimy stone floor and walked over to his escort. If the soldiers were surprised, they hid it pretty well in Shadow's eyes. Definitely highly disciplined. As he exited the dismal cell that had been his improvised lodgings for the night, one of the men closed the iron barred door and locked it behind him. They moved in standard formation, Shadow walking in between either soldier in a vertical line. There was no room for escape, had any thought begun to cross his mind of such an act.

As the time drew closer to the execution, Shadow's mind grew evermore focused. The stones that made up the walls on either side of him took on an amazing clarity as he began to see each pore on the moss that made its home upon them. He could count the stones that made up the floor he walked upon, even though they melded almost seamlessly together. Shadow could see the literal light at the end of the tunnel probably before either soldier ever did.

As they ascended into the main complex of the correctional facility, Shadow studied the faces of the convicts that were imprisoned therein. Several of them he recognized, for they were among those who had the elite honor of having been apprehended by him, back during the times where Shadow was still working for GUN. Although it was scarcely months ago, it seemed almost a lifetime in and of itself that had passed since he had had the supreme displeasure of being counted among the organization.

The group passed through the cell block without much incident. The GUN officials saluted each of his entourage in turn as they passed through each chamber, and even the Warden of the prison complex came out to watch the proceedings. None would miss this historic day for the world itself, the day when Shadow the Hedgehog would see his last. And the world itself Shadow would give to ensure that his friends could not watch… that Maria couldn't watch.

As the group exited through the sturdy wooden doors, Shadow had his first glimpse of how many people were interested in his death. It seemed as if the entirety of Westopolis had come to see him die, as if the schools had all let out class that day to see the event. Television crews of all channels were tuned in to watch, the bright flashes of the cameras nearly blinding him as he stepped out into the sunlight.

From the prison he faced a large plaza, apparently big enough to hold the entire city and an execution crew. It was as if the Red Sea had once again parted for him as soldiers pushed the crowd back to either side, letting him pass to the raised platform. His entourage swelled in numbers as he was joined by the General, and his own security personnel. The silence was deafening to him, each eye trained upon the condemned… and he hadn't even begun walking yet. Somewhere in the crowd, someone began to sing. Even after just a few notes, he knew that the singing was for his ears only… Silver's work, he presumed.

_In the night light, do you see what you dream?_

_All your troubles, are they all what they seem?_

_Look around you, then you may realize,_

_All the creatures saw with the light…_

_And I might know of our future,_

_But then you still control the past._

_Only you know if you'll be together,_

_Only you know if we shall last…_

They began the procession, each step painfully slow to the tempo of the voice in his head. The crowd's eyes followed him like the lights of search towers. Shadow took a moment to stare at the sky as he walked, the bright blue sky that was uncharacteristically bright for the nature of the event. The voice continued, as the marathon dragged on.

_In the night light, do you still feel your pain,_

_For all the valor, you waited, never came._

_If you were able, would you go change the past,_

_Mend a faux pas with one last chance…_

_And I might, know of our future…_

_But then you still control the past._

_Only you know if you'll be together,_

_Tonight…_

The cameras in the back of the audience zoomed in, getting the whole picture of the ensemble. Shadow the Hedgehog in the lead, followed by what could nearly comprise an entire regiment of GUN soldiers. The commander headed this unit, his stride matching that of Shadow's. The procession continued at the same snail's pace, to Shadow's fury.

'_Cause every night I will save your life,_

_And every night I will be with you…_

'_Cause every night I still lay awake,_

_And I dream… of an absolution._

'_Cause every night I will make it right,_

_And every night I will come to you…_

_But every night it just stays the same,_

_And I dream… of an absolution._

As the crowd parted in front of them, the guillotine began to loom: a wooden structure that betrayed its ominous purpose to all who saw it. The machine's blade gleamed in the morning sun, the sharp edge clearly visible as a contrast to the rest of the metal. Today… no noose was hardly good news.

_In the night light, do you see what you dream,_

_For all your triumph, and all you'll ever be…_

_Look around you, then you may realize,_

_Happiness lies trapped in misery…_

_And who knows, what of our future,_

_We can all try to change the past…_

_Only you know if you'll be together,_

_Tonight…_

The dais came ever closer as they walked, each second closing the distance left to travel by a miniscule amount. Shadow noticed that the crowd was filling in the gap behind them as they walked, allowing everyone to watch the historic moment together. Popularity sucks.

'_Cause every night I will save your life,_

_And every night I will be with you…_

'_Cause every night I still lay awake,_

_And I dream… of an absolution…_

'_Cause every night I will make it right,_

_And every night I will come to you…_

_But every night it just stays the same,_

_And I dream… of an absolution._

Finally, after an age, they reached the platform: five steps leading up to the wooden stage of death. The Executioner took his place next to the guillotine, and the event began. The song continued throughout. All eyes were trained upon him as he took what were to be his last steps.

'_Cause every night, I will save your life,_

_And every night I will be with you._

'_Cause every night I just lay awake,_

_And I dream… of an absolution._

'_Cause every night I will make it right,_

_And every night I will come to you._

_But every night it just stays the same,_

_And I dream… of an absolution._

His sentence was read. Gee, there was some good news. The man had to read off of a teleprompter because there was too much stuff for him to memorize. He could barely hear the highlights of his life through the music that was persistently drowning out the man's words. Annoyingly, he missed the part where he had almost taken a knife to the Commander's face, his favorite "misdemeanor".

_And you'll see! (And you'll see…)_

_What you'll be! (What you'll be…)_

_And you'll see! (Yeah, yeah…)_

_All you can, (All you can…)_

_And every night, (And every night…)_

_And every night, (And every night…)_

_And every night, (Every night,)_

_I will dream… (I will dream…)_

Finally, the charges had finished. It was time. The entire city was silent; a pin dropped at the outskirts of the city could be heard like an explosion in the plaza. It was all over. Shadow stepped forward into the shadow of the guillotine's blade. He knelt down and placed his head on the chopping block. Time to pay for the trouble he caused the world by his very existence… Today it all ended.

"Maria… goodbye…" he muttered, waiting for the final seconds of his life to tick away. With a cue by the commander, the Executioner performed his duty. The blade fell swiftly, seemingly unimpeded by wind nor air. Shadow's time on Earth was up.

And just like that, it was over.

_And you'll see, (and you'll see…)_

_That this is my dream… (what you'll be…)_

_And you'll see,_

_Every night…_

_I will always dream… ('Cause every night…)_

_And every night…_

_And every night…_

_I will dream… (I will dream…)_


	13. Chapter 12

In a second, his world flipped upside down. Against the azure backdrop of the sky, an emerald aurora shone, from which dropped a figure in freefall. From its hands flew two tiny objects, hurtling faster than speeding bullets. A blinding flash erupted over the guillotine, and the audience ducked their heads just in time to miss the spectacular occurrence. Years (or in some cases minutes) of training kicked in for the GUN soldiers, their guns rising to point at the source milliseconds after the disturbance began.

The blade fell smoothly down the wooden scaffolding of the structure like water gushing off of a raging waterfall… Yet, the two grapelike objects, thrown with such precision and accuracy, detonated with enough force to blow it clean off of the base. With an explosion that blinded and dazzled the spectators and soldiers that were actually _watching_, the entire top half of the guillotine was broken off and tossed aside like an abused child's toy before the blade had half finished its deadly path. Shadow was spared the doom of execution by a matter of milliseconds…

And his savior was on the scene in a flash. (A horrible pun, I'm aware.) Miles "Tails" Prower fell from the sky in a death spiral, landing onto the wooden platform in a landing that would have surely earned him ten stars in the Olympic Skydiving event… while also inventing the event at the same time. He dropped to the ground in a kneeling position; his board held firmly in his left hand, which was extended straight out like a tree limb. His golden fur was ruffled and tousled with the wind, but that wasn't the focus of everyone's attention at this moment.

The GUN soldiers were astonished. The crowd was astonished. The viewers at home were astonished. Here he was, the hero they had all grown to love, saving a known fugitive from rightful execution. Fortunately for the kitsune, everyone was speechless at the sight, which gave him ample opportunity to save his hide from being bullet-ridden. Shadow, meanwhile, was looking around from his position on the chopping block, confused as to why he was still able to do so. The top of the guillotine had luckily landed in a disused side street that had conveniently been empty of pedestrians. As Tails began to speak, the entirety of the world listened intently.

"Commander Darius of the Guardian Units of Nations… You are hereby charged with high treason against the same. All military and arbitrary actions, including but not limited to the execution of one Shadow the Hedgehog are to be immediately suspended, and your leadership is hereby rendered null and void." The crowd gasped, the soldiers all turned their heads and faced their leader. All other eyes were now centered on Tails, even those of Shadow now as he stood and turned to face him. Curiosity was useful in this regard. The Commander spoke, indignant to the charges against him.

"Treason? _On what grounds_?! This is madness! You are just here to save your "friend"! Guards, seize that fox!" the commander forcibly commanded. Some obeyed, raising their guns and marching toward the kitsune. The fox kit responded by sending a low frequency pulse of electromagnetic energy in their direction. Migraines immediately erupted in those affected, allowing Tails ample time to present his evidence.

"Darius Cornelius, Ex-commander of GUN, in this fair trial by your fellow men I shall act as the judge, the executioner, the jury, the executioner, the bailiff, the executioner, the court stenographer, _and_ the executioner. I present my evidence, transcripts of messages sent to one Black Doom of the Black Arms during the invasion crisis not a year ago past." The commander instantly paled, and his soldiers (those who didn't have intense migraines) immediately performed mass mutiny. He now found himself surrounded by a wall of gun barrels with no possible means of escape. Tails continued with confidence, bringing up the files on his board's digital readout. It still showed scars from its battle with Eggman's security, yet it could still present every damning piece of evidence against the Commander. Shadow stared in confusion and awe at Tails' actions.

"These messages relate, in detail, your conspiracy with Black Doom, and your plot to damage GUN from within and allow Black Doom to take over Earth. It also details your suicide missions you ordered to be enacted against Shadow, forcing him to kill your own soldiers and so weaken GUN from within." As he spoke, the messages scrolled quickly through the digital readout, which he displayed for the entire audience to see. Shadow watched, speechless as he realized the implications of what Tails was saying.

He was completely innocent. The commander had set him up, and now Shadow had been about to pay the price. In his anger, he completely forgot about his earlier assertions of his worthlessness, although it might crop up later. Tails sneaked a look over his shoulder and caught Shadow's eye, giving him a slight nod. Shadow nodded back in thanks, before looking around some more. Last time he checked, Rouge was with Tails watching Maria… If Tails was away from his lab, he probably brought Rouge as well, somewhere… Suddenly, the commander's harsh barking laugh emanated from within the perimenter of soldiers.

"Hahaha! Clever little bastard, aren't you? Well, you're too late! I've been working for a long time to destroy this organization, and now I've finally done it! The fact that Shadow is still alive means nothing to my plans! _Doctor Eggman! Master! It's time!_" he shouted as he turned to a disused side street, causing the faces of all who watched to pale. This spelled trouble… big trouble. And indeed, from the very same side street that the top of the guillotine had landed in, one of the Doctor's stereotypically large and egg-shaped robots came stomping down the street, bringing ill tides as always. And inside that metallic menace was none other than the man himself.

Chaos took hold immediately. Pedestrians rushed out from the plaza, frantic to escape the wrath of Eggman. The ex-commander sat back and laughed as the scene unfolded before him. The crowd disappeared within seconds, but Eggman had apparently planned for this. Explosions sounded from all around the city, buildings everywhere crashing down into the streets. Those that hadn't escaped yet were trapped by falling debris, and those that were unlucky enough to be caught under the wreckage were probably the most fortunate of all in that they died quickly.

Twin gatling guns erupted from either side of the Eggman's creation. It looked like an egg with chicken-like legs and metallic arms, from where Shadow and Tails were standing on the executioner's block. The shoulder pads concealed ports for the guns, while cylindrical nubs on the end of the robot's hands betrayed rocket launchers. Eggman sat back under a glass canopy in the robot's chest that _definitely_ did not remind them of previous robots at all. Shadow and Tails leapt out of the way as the spots they previously occupied became targets for mass incineration. They took shelter inside a derelict building, one that had been just barely spared by the demolition charges.

"Alright, fox boy. Talk. What's up?" Shadow spoke quietly, calm as ever through the entire affair. Tails was visibly shaking, but attempted to keep his cool for the most part.

"We were watching the execution on TV when one of my GUN probes made a hit back on my supercomputer. For some reason, your GUN records were accessed again, allowing my probe an entryway into their system. From there, my probe was able to extract the data I just found. We just barely made it using Chaos Control, Sonic had to drop me off so I could stop the ceremony." Tails paused for a breath, giving Shadow a chance to nod in appreciation. Of course, the fact that Maria knew everything was concealed from him… for now.

"Sonic was supposed to be on backup, but apparently he's disappeared… I don't know what happened. We should-" Tails was halted in midsentence by the loudspeaker emanating from Eggman's craft.

"Oh, Shadow! You wouldn't believe what kind of… _interesting_… specimens I've found!" Shadow narrowed his eyes in anger, swiping the Chaos Emerald from Tails' shaking hand and warping out into the street. He was met with a horror scene, as he materialized on the now destroyed platform that, mere minutes ago, was to serve as his execution spot.

Eggman had apparently found some aces up his sleeve. Pulsing pink orbs floated above the robot, hovering just above the glass dome. Within them lay Rouge and Maria… that bastard. Maria was pounding away at her cage with all her might, but in vain, while Rouge was unconscious. A grunt to the left of Shadow alerted him to Sonic's presence. He was on his knee, one of his eyes closed by a nasty hit to the face. He was pushing his limits, but the cobalt hedgehog was close to being overwhelmed. As he spoke, blood dripped from his mouth.

"I'm sorry Shadow… I tried to stop him, but he was waiting for me… it wasn't just an ambush, it was a slaughter." Shadow grunted in anger, glaring at Eggman with fury unbridled. The very air around him grew dense with his rage.

"Ooooh… So scared! I suggest you calm down, Shadow… You don't want to leave your friends… _hanging_, do you? Oho ho ho!" The man laughed at another of his lame puns, which served only to spark another bout of fiery rage. But Shadow was powerless against the threat against his friends. It seemed that Eggman had the upper hand here.

From the second story window, Tails launched a baseball sized charge that could have killed a deer just from the impact. Curiously, it sailed short of Eggman's robot, smashing into the skull of the ex-commander who had been running down the street toward his master. The explosion created a crater out of the road the size of a small meteor, and formed a no-mans-land between the two enemies. The standoff began. Tails dropped from the window to avoid several buckshot rounds that were fired mere moments later, courtesy of the good doctor. It was three on one, yet it seemed the battle had already been lost before it had even begun. Eggman was in good spirits, considering his follower had just been executed. If there was one thing Tails was, he was true to his word.

"Eh, I didn't care about him anyway. Now, about my terms… I'll make it simple. Since I've already gotten my device back from Rouge, here… Give me the emeralds, and she goes free. Give me one of you three as well, and I'll let the other girl go. You have a minute to comply, before I indulge gravity…" Eggman's voice carried across to them, bringing the unfortunate tides. Shadow could see the homing device glinting in the morning light as Eggman twirled it in his fingers. He cursed his decision to leave it with her, narrowing his eyes in frustration.

Shadow was trapped between a hammer and an anvil… there was nothing that could be done. Reluctantly, fighting every movement with his entire body, he took a step forward. The smile on Eggman's face upon seeing his compliance was revolting… but the threat of Maria served as motivation enough to continue.

Suddenly, Maria shouted through the prismatic cage. Her muffled voice barely made it across the battlefield, but to Shadow it was as if she were right next to him.

"Shadow! If I don't make it out of here… I want you to know! You've always been, and you always will be my friend! Death won't stop that!" Shadow stopped, tears fighting to break through his eyes. But he would be strong… he would save her.

"Fine, Eggman. The emeralds are here." Shadow held out his right arm to the side, as the yellow chaos emerald materialized within it. Sonic tossed his own emerald from the ground behind him, which Shadow caught easily in his left. Eggman laughed, his voice reaching across the battleground to the trio as Shadow held the emeralds. Tails and Sonic watched as Shadow suddenly tensed.

"But you're going to have to take them from my lifeless body! Sonic, don't let me down!" Shadow shouted, suddenly blasting off with his hover shoes. Within just a few seconds, Shadow left Mach I behind and summoned a sonic boom at his back. Glass shattered, the ground rumbled, Eggman's machine stalled for but a moment as the shockwave passed, but that moment was all Shadow needed. The black hedgehog's body was all but covered in flame as friction ignited the aura of Chaos about him.

A burning shoe slammed into Eggman's capsule, throwing the robot back down onto its back on the street. Shadow dropped out of the sky, having imparted all of his momentum into that one crippling kick. As he landed, Shadow looked up just in time to watch the energy cages weaken. Without the energy required to sustain them the glowing orbs dissipated, sending their occupants plummeting toward the ground. A gust of wind blew past him as Sonic took his cue, leaping into the air and neatly catching Rouge as her limp form dropped out of the sky. Another grape-sized object whizzed past Shadow's ear, shooting out four industrial sized cables as the grape became a latticework of cords just under where Maria fell. Tails was right next to them a few seconds later, his board having barely enough juice left without the emerald to make it over to them.

Shadow, with his friends all around him, watched as Eggman's machine fell apart at the seams. Small metal fragments crashed to the ground as the machine seemed to shed its metal skin, the entire frame shaking and morphing into… something. The arms grew shorter; hands replaced with glowing energy blades. The legs shuddered as they fell off, replaced by whirring helicopter blades. Shadow could see the air below the robot being pushed down as the body floated. Eggman's capsule became the center of the robot as machine parts slid up from behind the glass shield and became a chestpiece and shoulders. Dual laser cannons rose out of the neck, aiming down with barrels more than four feet long each.

Shadow had to admit, despite Eggman's lack of planning, lack of strategy, and lack of any outward signs of intelligence whatsoever, he could still build amazing feats of engineering. But that still wouldn't stop him from tearing it limb from limb. The emeralds in his hands glowed brighter, sensing his resolve. Power flooded his veins, driving his adrenaline faster and faster as it raced through his system. His mind narrowed into a deadly point, honed with one diamond hard emotion… rage.

"Eggman… You can threaten the citizens, you can threaten GUN, you can threaten the _entire world_ for all I care! But when you threaten Maria, you cross a line with no return! Tonight, Eggman… _**YOU DINE IN HELL!**_" Shadow roared, sending his body into overdrive. The air around him singed with power as an aura of blazing fire surrounded the hedgehog. Without a warning, Shadow shot like a bullet faster than Sonic could go in his dreams toward Eggman's craft. The emeralds disappeared, lending their strength together to fuel Shadow's mad dash.

The battle began with a clash of sparks as each combatant attacked the other. Shadow's fists were met by the flats of Eggman's blades as he brought them down together in a massive overhead slam, fizzing with an unholy buzz as each of their powers competed for dominance. Shadow's momentum died a few seconds later, and he pushed off with his boots just before his gloves began to sizzle and disintegrate. Eggman laughed in arrogance at Shadow's seemingly ineffective attack. With a few backward flips, Shadow landed a few yards away to face Eggman once more.

"Hah! Is this all the 'Ultimate Lifeform' can do? You fool! This is NeoEgg, my greatest creation! After I've disposed of you, I'll rip your new girlfriend apart!" Shadow growled in anger, his fiery aura returning with renewed vigor. Closing his eyes, he placed his thumb and middle finger together and summoned all of his might to hand. The light around his fingers dimmed as they glowed with dark Chaos energy. Shadow appeared to all others as a shadow within a sphere of shadows, invisible within the darkness. Shadow opened his eyes with a start, fixing his stare on the egg as he shouted his spell.

"_CHAOS SPEAR!_" His fingers snapped, and an explosion of destructive energy propelled itself toward Eggman's craft in that same second. Shadow watched as twenty supercharged missiles of Chaos energy impaled themselves in Eggman's energy blades as the doctor brought them up to defend himself. The energy fizzled and dissipated as the spears did their job. Scoffing at Eggman's latest and greatest failure, Shadow went on the offensive again.

He leapt at the NeoEgg, landing a punch square on Eggman's robotic left arm that had replaced the dead sword guarding Eggman's capsule. Flipping over the arm he laid a fantastic diving kick straight down the glass. A long scratch appeared as Shadow dropped to the ground again, dodging kicks and punches from Eggman's bot as it attacked in retaliation. The black hedgehog ducked as a metallic fist thrust over his head, sidestepped past a robotic foot that followed, but failed to take into account Eggman's Vulcan cannons. Shadow took a nasty hit to the face from a flaming shell, falling onto his back and skidding for a while. Rolling over, he leapt across the ground, quickly dodging another barrage. Eggman laughed yet again as the homing devices in Eggman's machine locked on to the midnight black hedgehog.

"Ha! I've got you now, rodent!" The big red button that almost always spelled trouble sank into the control station as Eggman laid his fat gloved finger upon it. From every orifice of the robot, missiles shot out the size of soda cans. Burning jets nearly a foot long followed behind, yet they moved at a snail's pace. Leave it to Eggman to design something that defeated the purpose of the item itself.

With a hop, a skip, and a jump, Shadow leapt from missile to missile until he was once again within arm's reach of the Neo Egg; then leapt high into the air. Eggman craned his neck to try to follow Shadow's jump, only to find that there was no need. Shadow dropped out of the sky with force enough to break an elephant's back, slamming down upon the head of the laser cannon above the capsule. However, instead of what Shadow had _hoped_ to do, unfortunately, Eggman's craft instead slammed down upon the ground. The whirring helicopter blades quickly made mincemeat of the comparatively soft asphalt, and soon there was a crater at least thirty feet in diameter in the site of the impact. Shadow neatly backflipped off of the bot and dusted his hands off coolly, thinking that Eggman had, despite the misfire, been defeated.

How wrong he was. He had meant to destroy the lasers, but unfortunately for him he hadn't even dented the cannons yet. The twin barrels swiftly aimed, and together fired a combined blast that shot directly into Shadow's chest. Burning agony erupted at the impact, and he couldn't even feel himself lift off of the ground and fly back fifty yards, landing right next to his friends who had been watching from afar. As he scratched and tore at his chest trying to get the hot plasma off, Eggman's machine rose out of the smoldering crater like a zombie rising from its grave.


	14. Chapter 13

Tails gasped as the smoking form of Shadow slid to the ground next to him, his flesh singed with burning plasma. Eggman seemed to have outdone himself this time, bringing out the big guns in celebration of his hostile takeover. While the battle had been going on, Tails had flown up to his improvised net and gotten Maria down. He thought he might as well, considering the fact that Eggman had forgotten all about his prisoners.

On the other side of Shadow's body, Sonic was still trying to revive Rouge. They were both beaten up pretty badly, the kitsune could tell. He could only guess as to what had happened after Sonic had dropped him, but he assumed that Eggman had been waiting for him. The hedgehog was supposed to appear atop the prison complex with Rouge and Maria, just in case things got ugly. Somehow, Eggman must have caught him… Rouge was unconscious, probably because she had tried to defend Maria. Tails winced as he imagined the scene in his mind, Eggman delivering a sickening backhand to the bat as she protected Maria with her whole body. Sonic had probably tried to do his part, combining spin dashes and homing attacks alike to take Eggman down, but judging by the bruising on his face he must not have fared so well.

Next to him, Tails sensed Maria try to rush out toward Shadow, but the kitsune extended an arm to stop her. Shadow had enough on his mind right now, and if Eggman saw her, he might go after her, Tails feared. On the ground, the singed hedgehog rose onto one knee, coughing weakly. His arms still glowed with unearthly light from the Chaos Emeralds, but the hedgehog's eyes betrayed his weakness. There simply wasn't enough power to keep him going without all seven. Tails sneaked a glance at Maria's face, and immediately wished he hadn't. Her eyes were locked on Shadow's wounds, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks in horror. It must be hard on her, Tails reflected… watching her best friend burn.

Shadow looked over at her for but a second, one fleeting moment's glance to regain his resolve. Tails watched as his form became spherical, charging for a spin dash. Orbs of light pulsed around his form just before he released. Tails looked over at Eggman's machine, which had begun to charge for another barrage of plasma beams. It wasn't hurt badly, he could see, although there were very distinct dents in the robot's arms and one clear scratch running vertically down the glass separating the fat lard from the rest of the world. When the kitsune next turned to look at Shadow's spinning form, he merely saw the hedgehog's body disappear as it shot out toward the hovering egg.

Shadow's spikes tore chunks out of the asphalt as he dashed, finally leaping into the air once he had gotten in range only to launch into a spinning Homing Attack. Eggman's craft was knocked back from the impact, the laser cannon firing harmlessly into the air as its trajectory was thrown completely off target. The hedgehog landed in a track runner's stance, supported only by his right hand and the tips of his toes. Eggman stopped playing around, bringing out once again the Vulcan cannons. Shadow leapt to the left to dodge the deadly barrage, dashing under the whirling helicopter blades and leaping into the air next. This time, Eggman was waiting for him, though… Tails watched as Eggman's machine spun around and smacked the hedgehog before he could begin another attack. Shadow landed on his feet, but Tails could see that he was on his last legs. Everyone could see it… including Eggman.

The kitsune could not believe his eyes as he saw Shadow get up again, the hedgehog's left hand lingering over his right wrist. A miniscule glint of gold flashed, before a tiny golden ring dropped from Shadow's wrist. The bruised hedgehog did the same for his left, dropping the second power limiter to the ground. Both Sonic and Tails gasped audibly as they saw him commit what would no doubt be akin to suicide. At that moment, Rouge woke up just in time to see Shadow join the ranks of the Kamikaze warriors.

Tails had no time to explain to Maria what was about to happen, the die had already been cast. Eggman, too, was shocked that Shadow would expose himself to the full power of the Emeralds like this. A hailfire of Vulcan cannon shots rained down upon Shadow as Eggman tried in vain to stop the menace before it was too late, but the burning bullets disintegrated before they could pierce the fiery aura that had now begun to appear about the hedgehog. The laser cannon atop Eggman's craft now began to charge once more, and the good doctor was spamming the red launch button as if the directions said "Press the Red Button to live," which, in this case, was definitely a misnomer. As the cannon fired prematurely, Shadow merely swatted the otherwise deadly beam to the side, all but destroying an adjacent building as the diverted plasma carved a swath of destruction in its path. Tails could see the fiery aura around Shadow grow brighter by the second, pure power flowing through the hedgehog's veins… There was a reason that it was suicide for him to remove the power limiters: they were his last defense against the power of Chaos… the mysterious force that defied all attempts of explanation. Shadow would no doubt be in intense pain right now as raw power began to break through his skin, but the kitsune couldn't tell through the ferocious snarl that adorned Shadow's face.

Suddenly, he was gone. The next second, Shadow appeared in front of Eggman's craft, on Tails' side rather than the opposite side where he had fallen, and slammed a resounding Homing Attack into the middle of the machine. It flew back a fair ways from the force of the impact, the shockwave from the blow shattering the windows of the houses nearby that had been spared the earlier demolitions.

Finally, Shadow launched an all out attack with all of his newfound might. The burning aura around the hedgehog imploded upon him as he nearly flew out, leaving a sonic boom in his wake. A trail of fire followed as the ultimate lifeform leapt into the air in front of Eggman's craft, and slammed once more into the machine. This time, they flew together from Shadow's attack, carrying the both of them into a resounding crash with a building at the end of the street. The building could no longer support itself after receiving such a blow, and having both fighters crash completely through the bottom floor didn't help things much either. With an almost choreographed demolition, the edifice crumbled upon itself, burying the two opponents under more than a ton of rubble. Dust clouds billowed out from the remains, obscuring Tails' vision for a second until they cleared.

A faint glow could be seen from within the rubble, almost appearing as embers faintly glowing from within the pile of stones… and then it faded away, back into the depths of the destruction. Shadow the Hedgehog… was gone.

It had all happened so fast… they couldn't even comprehend it. Shadow… gone? It was inconceivable. But the rubble could tell no lies as it smoldered in a great heap of now useless masonry. A second passed with utter silence as each tried to process what they had just seen.

Ironically, Sonic was the first to come to his senses, at a stunning three seconds after the crash had ended. With not a cocky word or snide remark to spare, he raced over to the wreckage… It was hard for him to watch this… He had always thought that he'd compete with Shadow forever… always trying to prove which of them was really the ultimate… Funny how short forever is these days…

Tails was obviously next, but he wasn't as fast as Sonic was… It took him a while longer to reach the impact site, to see the carnage first hand… It was horrifying. Splintered wooden beams stuck out at odd angles like shattered bones breaking through skin. Layer upon layer of black rubble was piled up on top of itself, debris littered across the featureless landscape of destruction. Broken windows were strewn about the scene, insulation dotting the ground like hailstones. It was obvious… Even if Shadow had been in top shape, it was doubtful that even _he_ could survive _this_… With that Chaos energy degrading the hedgehog's body like that, there was no way he could have survived. Tears began to well up in his eyes as he said goodbye to his friend one… last… time…

Rouge was next, with Maria not too far behind. They were supporting each other as they ran; Rouge unsteady with her unconsciousness and Maria distraught from the scene before them. One look at either Tails or Sonic could have told them that there was no hope. Maria ran at the demolished building, frantically digging her way through the mess… It took all three of the others to pull her back, tears streaming down Maria's face like waterfalls. Her cries of anguish were heartbreaking to hear as she frantically called his name…

Sonic disappeared for a minute, but he was unmissed as everyone was dealing with their grief. Tails at the loss of a comrade, Maria at the loss of her best friend, Rouge at the loss of her partner… The cobalt blur came back minutes later with a crude wooden cross, made of deep dark brown wood. He stuck it into the ground at the base of the ruined building, to commemorate Shadow's selfless deed. The four gathered around the improvised tombstone to pay their last respects to the ultimate lifeform. Upon it, Sonic had carved: _Here lies the Ultimate Lifeform, who paid the ultimate price to make the world a better place. Shadow the Hedgehog – R.I.P._

"Hey, don't look so glum! Jeez, it looks like a funeral over here!" a voice called out from the top of the rubble. All eyes turned to gaze upon the miracle, as Shadow the Hedgehog appeared before them. His eyes were bloodshot and dim, his arms badly bruised and his legs weak and bent at awkward angles. But worst of all was his fur, where a deathly shade of gray was beginning to show. The Chaos Emeralds did have an effect after all…

Shadow was weak, despite his light manner. As he took a step to try to get down from his perch atop the rubble, his legs gave way and he fell head first to the group below. Luckily, Sonic and Rouge caught him, and set him gently down onto the ground. He was still awake, but unconsciousness was starting to set in. Maria wasn't going to let him go though; she was going to make sure of that. Seconds after Sonic and Rouge set him down, she leapt on top of him and squeezed what life was left in him out, sobbing into his graying fur.

Shadow would have hugged back, had his arms been strong enough. Instead he just lay there, with Maria on top of him sobbing with joy, as he gathered enough strength to speak. His voice was weak now, as if he had given all of his energy just to give that first line. It appeared that he had lost both emeralds to the wreckage.

"Come on, Maria… I'm not gunna leave you… not now, not ever." Above them, the others decided to leave the two with their moment. Of course, they'd have their hands full cleaning up the mess as well, not to mention cleaning themselves up. The battle had taken its toll on everyone, but the promise of a new dawn was greater than ever. Shadow and Maria were reunited once again, and the timeline was left unaltered.

From the wreckage of the day's events comes a new promise, a new hope, a new dawn: a world without Eggman.

**Phew! Finally over, finally done proofreading it! Now we're on to the credits.**

**Thanks go supremely to SuperDragon, for lending his help throughout the entire project. He had even volunteered his time to help me proofread the story, and while he still hasn't finished going through the chapters, I have decided to go and post it anyway.**

**I would also like to thank my INCREDIBLY patient Chaos Tournament fans, who have been waiting these four long months for me to update. Well, good news everyone! My schedule has just been freed!**

**And finally, to you. That's right: I would like to thank **_**you**_** for reading this. Not only does it make me incredibly happy to see all of the people reading my stories, but the glowing reviews I get make it all worthwhile to spend my time on this. Go ahead you guys, pat yourself on the back, give yourself a high five, you rule! Please do take a moment or two to write a review for the story, anonymous reviews are accepted and appreciated. I reply to all signed reviews.**

**Thank you all, and good night !**


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